General Battle Spot Singles Gameplay Questions

[Sara Sol]

Having picked up X at the end of March, I've wanted to play better competitively.
I've read the intro, played some on showdown, and thought I understood most of the basics of what are the main threats of the format, but overall I'm an abysmal battler (My current in-game rated record is 9-9 or something, and my showing in the 2014 April thing was rather terrible). Lots of questions, concerning basic teambuilding, threat assessment, and in-combat decisions. Often when I'm playing, I feel like I have lots of tools in front of me, but that I am not using them properly/lack intuition. I'm probably not articulating all my questions that well, and I'm sure more will pop into my head, so I apologize for that.

1. What's the a good way to pick your 6, assuming you're playing singles battle spot?
I've always tried to balance things, with about 1/2 special oriented and 1/2 physically oriented, with at least one able to take on/neuter physical threats, while another geared more to handle special. I spread out the typing, and tend to end up with a hodgepodge of "good stuffs" that don't really have much synergy. Always end up feeling like I'm not covering what I need to be, often wishing I had more tanks/answers. Realize this is a rather broad query overall about teambuilding >.<

2. How are leads chosen? What are the best leads when you see swagplay, baton pass, or non-straightforward?
Historically I've always lead with Rotom-W or Dragonite, with Rotom scouting/trying to neuter a physical attacker with WoW, or Dnite trying to set up quickly. In the past (mainly 6v6 singles from other eras) I'd be focused on setting up hazards, but that doesn't seem to be a big thing in spot.

3. How does one best use the preview? What are red flags that mustn't be ignored when the enemy 6 pop up?
In general I try to avoid situations with obvious type disadvantages (see fires, hold steel back, etc) but since it feels like most teams I see are fairly varied in their picks, I never feel confident about what I'm sending out. Like, how many physical attackers would one have to see to know 100% that one has to bring in a tank or WoW user? Does seeing a Mega-Ven mean never sending out any of the main water-types that see play? (No clue if this is a good approach at all)

4. Where's the best place to go for battle spot discussions/information?
The smogon battle spot irc is pretty much empty, while the battle spot forum section doesn't really see much action either (relatively), leading me to generally just read analyses and thoughts in the OU sections, which doesn't always apply. Is there a lobby or irc channel I am not aware of?

5. Best way to punish switches/avoid getting punished?
Whenever I'm switching in and out, I always end up feeling like I'm just exposing my team to more status or solid neutral hit and losing momentum in general, while for my opponents the switches in general force me to switch and they have the upper hand.

6. As someone trying to improve, am I asking the right questions?

Initial default team thoughts:

Dragonite/Aegislash/Azumarill/Rotom-W/Scizor/Talonflame
DDnite runs lum to hopefully make setting up easier; considering Espeed WP variants
Aegislash runs mixed crumbler; considering WP or Air Balloon
Azumarill is AV and bulky rather than drum; considering drum
Rotom-W running WoW and chestorest; considering Scarf-Trick
Scizor pursuit-traps, uturn momentum and priority steel; considering Mega-Kang
Talonflame runs CB spams Brave Bird; considering Bulk Up WoW set

Thoughts about other pokemon in my arsenal already
Gengar: Frail, if predict wrong dead
Gardevoir: Niche, though scarf-bond is fun, priority (espeed dnite especially) destroys it
Garchomp: Twave immunity and Mega-Maw killing nice, but feels frail compared to dnite
Volcarona: Great when able to get going, dead weight otherwise
Kangaskan: Strong, but predictable and linear (I'm new/bad at using her =/ )
Goodra: Fun to use vs special attacker teams, takes a lot of damage from neutral physical

Pokes I've been rotating between listed below.
Other pokes I plan to add to the rotation include: Mega-Mawile, Ferrothorn, and Mega-Gyarados.

Hide

Dragonite @ Lum Berry
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Fire Punch

Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Brick Break
- U-turn
- Pursuit

Aegislash @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 4 SDef / 252 Atk / 252 SAtk
Quiet Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Shadow Sneak
- King's Shield
- Sacred Sword

Rotom-Wash @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Will-O-Wisp
- Rest

Talonflame @ Choice Band
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- Sleep Talk
- U-turn

Azumarill @ Assault Vest
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 16 HP / 252 Atk / 240 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Waterfall
- Aqua Jet
- Play Rough
- Power-Up Punch

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Return
- Earthquake
- Sucker Punch

Garchomp @ Lum Berry
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Outrage
- Swords Dance
- Rock Tomb
- Earthquake

Goodra @ Assault Vest
Ability: Gooey
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SAtk / 8 SDef
Quiet Nature
- Dragon Tail
- Draco Meteor
- Thunderbolt
- Fire Blast

Gardevoir @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Trace
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- Moonblast
- Psyshock
- Thunderbolt
- Destiny Bond

Volcarona @ Leftovers
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 240 HP / 112 Spd / 156 Def
Modest Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Roost
- Bug Buzz
- Fiery Dance

Gengar @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sludge Bomb
- Destiny Bond
- Focus Blast

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Singles Battle Spot is not easy, nor is it very straightforward...People literally use everything.

MegaMom and Garchomp rule the day, so you have to always be prepared for those two in the very least.

I'm currently 3rd in the US in Singles and I have been running....
Mega Mawile/Blissey/Flame Orb Cresselia/CMCune/ScarfChomp/Focus Sash Volcarona (probably gonna replace with Charizard or Conkelderp).

You will fight stupid OHKO teams, you will fight stupid Minimize teams, but most are not the best players and are usually very gimmicky. Its best to try to cover everything, so you do not get steamrolled.

A good reason to use Blissey is winning by HP remaining if it comes down to fighting something like Gengar or Special Aegis. Also, what are you going to do when 10% of effects happen? Keel over and lose?

I also suggest looking over the commonly used sets. Mega Kang is not very likely to use Fake Out in Singles and PUP is an absolute must in Singles.

 

[ethan06]

First things first, good job; these are actually really relevant questions that every developing battler should hold the answers to as they're really good. I'll see if I can answer them myself, keeping in mind that I'm nowhere near the most successful or the best battler here by any stretch:

(I've been writing this over like a day so if I repeat anything Myth said then sorry Myth ;_; )

1. Firstly, a good approach to teambuilding is to always keep Team Preview in mind. You want at least one check to every Pokémon in the top 10 usage (which you can find easily on the Global Link), resistances to ideally every type and most common paired types, or at least a reliably way to sponge the hits that you may take neutrally, and a minimum of two win conditions with wide coverage. Speed and/or damage control are also good ideas (so screens, Intimidate, reliable healing on defensive mons, optional Wish-passing, Sticky Web, Choice Scarf, Trick Room(?)). It seems like a lot but realistically there's no limit to the amount of different options you can try. It's uncommon to finish your team and then notice a glaring weakness so you replace one or two guys with things that cover that weakness, and then another one becomes apparent and so on so forth. At the very least, you need an answer to a) Aegislash b) Talonflame c) Garchomp and d) Mega Kangaskhan.

2. The first turn is the most difficult part of the game in 3v3. At that point, you have no idea about the opponent's decision-making style or movesets, so making a misprediction is scarily easy. If you get a bad matchup, it often doesn't get any better, so leading with an extremely fast pivot or running heavily defensive Pokémon that you can hard switch to in the event of a poor lead matchup are both good ideas. It's perfectly viable to lead with a setup sweeper or a wallbreaker and just tear chunks out of the opposing team, as 3v3 teams are usually much more synergistically fragile than a full team of 6. Dragonite, as you say, is a good example as it can both soak up hits with Multiscale and set up easily. A Choice Banded one would work quite well if they don't bring Fairies as Outrage can tear chunks out of a team with ease. But yeah. In Team Preview you want to lead with whatever Pokémon is screwed over the least tbh :p

3. The match is determined by Team Preview, and Team Preview is determined by your teambuilding. During Team Preview, by all means single out the top threats and bring whichever check isn't screwed against the rest of their team - for the more centralising Pokémon in BS like the four I mentioned above, you'll want to bring something that specifically deals with them to the match as they are capable of doing so much damage in a short amount of time. Talonflame is mostly checked by fast Flying resists and bulky Water-types; Kangaskhan struggles with Steel- and Ghost-types unless unless she can hit them with Earthquake (----> Air Balloon/Levitate). If said check carries Will-o-Wisp then even better. But your picks need to have a general advantage over the opponent's lineup of six, if not individually then at least together. Don't underestimate Pokémon that you don't see often, people (partiuclarly the Japanese) tend to run a lot of weird mons and sets that are easy to dismiss but are in actuality very powerful thanks to their surprise factor. Always be on your toes. Lastly, don't fall into the trap of bringing a check to a Pokémon (say Tyranitar) and then bringing a Tyranitar-weak mon, assuming that the check will sort it out. It almost never works that way, and usually inevitably results in a nightmare of switching and predictions.

tl;dr be as general as you can and try not to leave any glaring weakness unless they're already well covered.

4. Yeah, this is pretty much it. The Battle Spot forum is good to post things like this as although it's small and sometimes inactive, there's a solid group of users who will be able to help in whatever capacity. As far as sets go, the OU forum is normally the best place to look as the sets are generally great to translate over to the Battle Spot, unless they're heavily OU-specific sets. Unfortunately, outside of Smogon you won't find a lot of sets that aren't VGC so you'll just have to be inventive.

5. This is a common problem, and honestly the best methods of ensuring safe switches is to run bulky things with lots of resistances. It's also a good idea to run a few pertinent calcs on your team Pokémon so that you know whether or not they can take a certain hit, or whether they're powerful enough to take out something else. I run Mega Manectric for instance. Here how it generally fares against, say, Garchomp:

-1 252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Manectric: 138-164 (95.1 - 113.1%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Mega Manectric Hidden Power Ice vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Garchomp: 164-196 (89.1 - 106.5%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO

As you can see, it can generally go either way. With a little extra damage, Manectric can beat Garchomp but if it's Yache Berry or Choice Scarf I'm completely screwed unless Manectric can tank a hit. So it's shaky, but if I lead with Manectric and they lead with Talonflame or something I can pretty much always click Hidden Power because the switch to Garchomp is so obvious. It's all about knowing how you Pokémon do and choosing accordingly. As Myth said above, though, so many people run so much random shit that it can be quite difficult to judge. Use your intuition and you should be fine.

6. Yes.

 

[Sara Sol]

Apologies for the delayed replay (mutter mutter RL), but thank you both for your insights!

MythTrainerInfinity
I've switched over Kang to the PuP set, though I find myself only running it in my 6 part of the time. In general are the builds found on the global link (via usage) better than analysis builds founds in the OU section discussions (for the pokemon used in OU)?

When you say "Also, what are you going to do when 10% of effects happen? Keel over and lose?" do you mean things like, making sure your team doesn't just get destroyed if your counter gets frozen, or WoW misses their physical threat or something? I've definitely watched my positions collapse due misses and procs, but I'm not entirely sure how to mitigate that risk most efficiently.

ethan06
Very awesome detailed point by point breakdowns!
I've definitely has a lot of trouble trying to figure out the correct general answers, as I often get into a the prediction/switching nightmares you mentioned, and generally getting outplayed when it comes to those situations. Surprise factors like "which zard mega" or "Weakness policy activated!" tend to also put me in a bad spot a lot.
I've started using some of the calcs, but have been pretty bad with assumptions. Examples would be running a bulky zard-x that should avoid the 2ko by Rotom-W hydro pump (if uninvested)...but it feels like a toss up whether or not they have a bit of those SpA evs, and that has bitten me rather badly.

How dangerous are "annoying" pokemon like Minimize Blissey, Klefki, Whimsicott, that sort of thing? I find myself often over-prioritizing them at the select screen, with mixed results.

Versus teams that lean heavily on the bulkier side, is it better to try to win the prediction/switching wars, to wallbreak them, or to try to set up and power through?

" It's all about knowing how you Pokémon do and choosing accordingly."
Feels like I have a long ways to go :)

Thank you again both!
I've taken to taking notes of things I probably should be aware of prior to starting that I learned the hard way in matches, which has helped a bunch, I think.
Examples are things like:
Scarfers > ZardX with only 1 DD
ZardY > My RotomW
If my plan for MVen is Talon...better make sure SR doesn't destroy you
Healing wish/Lunar Dance is a thing
and much more...