Item Kee/Maranga Berry

[Haruno]

Kee BerryIf held by a Pokémon, this Berry will increase the Pokémon's Defense stat when hit by a physical attack

Maranga BerryIf held by a Pokémon, this Berry will increase the Pokémon's Sp. Defense stat when hit by a special attack


Any thoughts on these two berries?

 

[Thorhammer]

Does the increase happen before or after calculating damage? Also, I'd assume it's one stage and not two, but are we sure of that?

 

[Karpi]

I would hope that it activates before damage - then it would be a one-time Assault Vest without the self-taunt.

 

[Foo Fighter]

Can't confirm by screen shot, but if I remember from the Battle Maison they activate after the attack.

 

[Age of Kings]

These scream situational. I can't really think of how these can be consistently useful, especially since they are a one-time consumable. Maybe good on a Harvest mon, but I can't think of any useful ones.

 

[Thorhammer]

These scream situational. I can't really think of how these can be consistently useful, especially since they are a one-time consumable. Maybe good on a Harvest mon, but I can't think of any useful ones.

Trevenant would love the passive buff, but it can't really afford it when it needs Lum to help it heal...

 

[youngjake93]

Well if you have a Blissey with the defense berry, it can switch in on a weak neutral attack and obtain +1 defense to wall everything as long as it doesn't switch out. I guess it's just like defense curl if you didn't have to waste a moveslot and turn to set it up, but gave up leftovers instead. Pretty niche, but maybe not useless.

 

[RoyalBlue]

Terrible to be honest. Not worth the loss of lefties. You'll more than likely be switching as the opponent sends in a counter you can't handle regardless so you lose the boost (I'm assuming), essentially wasting you item slot.

 

[Age of Kings]

Well if you have a Blissey with the defense berry, it can switch in on a weak neutral attack and obtain +1 defense to wall everything as long as it doesn't switch out. I guess it's just like defense curl if you didn't have to waste a moveslot and turn to set it up, but gave up leftovers instead. Pretty niche, but maybe not useless.

Considering Blissey is prime set-up bait, she will be forced out a lot. What does an itemless Blissey offer over Chansey? A stronger Flamethrower....and that's it.

 

[youngjake93]

I'm not just saying Blissey. Cotton Guard+Taunt sDef Whimsicott could use a way to raise sDef w/o taking up a moveslot. Talk about a serious wall.
The items probably won't see real use though.

 

[Chou Toshio]

If it's an activate before attack item, that would be pretty damn cool and would see tons of use on set up sweepers, and faster bulky SR setters like Garchomp, Terrakion, Celebi, Jirachi, Mew, etc.

If it's activate after taking a hit... damn, almost worthless...

 

[nov]

combining these with harvest might be interesting, however, the awesomeness of sitrus heals or lum rest is so awesome with harvest that I doubt they will see use past tropius in NU for that (trevenant needs to use healing because of his role as a spin blocker). But imagine baton passing some sp.def to tropius and watching as your opponent slowly loses his grip as his stone edges do less and less damage each turn, which is further bolstered by leech seed and sub.

fun in theory, but most likely impossible to pull off against a decent team. We can certainly try it in the battle maison tho.

 

[produde]

They dont sound useful besides when you switch you lose the boost . It only a waste of item slot , might as well stick with lefties

 

[Redjar]

What about something like Calm Mind Harvest Exegcutor? You CM and boost up forcing them to attack your physical side, which causes you to get boosts that you can harvest back. Giga Drain slightly remedies the loss of sitrus/rest+lum.

Giga Drain
Calm Mind
Psychock/Psychic
Substitue/Hidden Power/ Leech seed

 

[Jojobobo]

Has anyone used these on an Unaware user (obviously with some other form of recovery)? I'm potentially thinking of:

Clefable @ Kee Berry
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 SDef
IVs: 0 Atk
- Cosmic Power
- Fireblast/Stored Power
- Toxic
- Moonlight

Obviously Clefable would like leftovers recovery, and can be phazed, taunted or afflicted with status, but the idea is to remove those kinds of checks (which I often have done when going hard for the stall). You either swap in on a resisted hit or instead you go for a revenge kill, coming in on a boosted attacker. First turn they'll hit you and you'll use Cosmic Power to get a +2 Def boost when the berry activates, 2nd turn your Def should hopefully now be high enough that you can tank a hit and heal off more with Moonlight. Repeat this until your health is decent enough to use another Cosmic Power (players in my experience with a different Unaware set try to boost higher as they think your running Magic Guard). Then pick them off with Fireblast (the preferred move to take out Steel types who are trying to capitalise on your weakness) or Toxic at your leisure (making sure to have removed Heatran post-bank). Cosmic Power, under these circumstances, has made you an unassailable mixed wall (baring an unlucky crit).

Interestingly, if there are no hazards on the ground you could wall a Mega Scizor this way. First turn:

252+ Atk Technician Mega Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 212-252 (53.8 - 63.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Then second turn:

252+ Atk Technician Mega Scizor Bullet Punch vs. +2 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 108-128 (27.4 - 32.4%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

For a maximum HP removed of 96.3% but you'd heal 50% on that turn anyway (remember any boosts to Scizors attack are irrelevant due to Unaware, also I am aware that most Mega Scizors won't be running 252+ Atk but it makes a good example). This set would be great for taking out boosted Dragon type Dragon Dancers; swapping in on a dragon move, tanking the subsequent (likely) non-STABed coverage move and using Cosmic Power, then stalling them out with toxic. Also even if you have been hit with status, as long as that status wasn't toxic, you should still be able to stall. If you do have to swap Clefable out, it's not the end of the world as it's defenses are still pretty solid to try another go at stalling.

 

[ChopperDave]

I bet a Kee berry would be good for getting a Classic Curselax into play. If you think about it, it's sort of like an intimidate that triggers after you get hit.

Snorlax @ Kee Berry
Thick Fat
Careful
Defensive EVs

-Curse
-Bodyslam
-Crunch
-Rest

CurseLax doesn't really NEED leftovers to be effective, and something like a Kee berry could give him that extra little bit of survivability he needs to set up a Curse or two and start smacking things around.

 

[Pyritie]

I once saw a gimmicky set that used a kee berry on a harvest tropius, since it also has roost for recovery

of course tropius is still, well, tropius

 

[TorchicBlaziken]

This might be useful on a Pokemon with Simple, or a Pokemon whose ability requires it to lose its item like Unburden or Magician. Well, I haven't tried it out, but it sounds like it would be an alternative to Weakness Policy on those Pokemon because it can switch in on a resisted hit. If you're using one of these berries you are going to want to use them to benefit from switching in on a resisted hit.

 

[Jojobobo]

I've now tested the Clefable, and it works well. I have a stally team with a Klefki Foul Play/Sub/TW/Swagger set - what that means is even if Klefki falls with the opponent only hitting 25% of the time due to paralysis and confusion you have a good opportunity to get in a Cosmic Power. Getting that extra boost when you are hit with a physical move is really nice, and even with a burn I managed to kill off a Scizor, Aegislash and stall out a Charizard-Y (not that the boosting effect of Sun on Moonlight didn't help - at the same time very few pokes hit as hard as Charizard-Y). The only trouble is Moonlight does have quite low PP, it shouldn't be an issue with most pokemon as your high defenses should mean that you don't have to heal all the time, but it's a consideration.

I mentioned in a different thread that though Clefable is weak to phazing, it is immune to Dragon Tail and Skarmory (one of the more common Whirlwind users) won't enjoy Fire Blast, so it's perhaps not as weak as you'd first imagine.

 

[flamewizzy21]

I think Kee and Marranga are good, but situational, and generally outclassed in most cases since you lose the whole berry boost if you swap out AND you need to take damage for it to work. If you need your wall to swap in to tank a blow, but then need to swap out right after because their wall-breaker response is coming in, then the effect of the berry is completely wasted.

 

[bstella1]

The best use I can think of would probably be for baton passers that you don't want to gamble on Weakness Policy with. Scolipede for example doesn't have the bulk to reliably survive supereffective hits, but he can reasonably come in on a resisted or weak neutral hit and get a free boost for his Baton Pass.

 

[Jaroda]

These were confirmed to activate after getting and not before right? Also, do these activate through a Sub?

 

[Jojobobo]

They activate after, at least on Showdown. Couldn't say about the sub.

 

[SansNickel]

Do these get activated behind a substitute? Anyway, I was thinking a gimmicky klefki set. Not sure about the last slot. Lack of reliable recovery sucks, but yeah.
Klefki @ Kee Berry
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature
- Recycle
- Calm Mind
- Draining Kiss
- Foul Play / Thunder Wave / Toxic / Light Screen / Reflect / Substitute / Torment / Rest / Spikes

 

[yeahhhboiii]

I run Kee berry on my Musharna in Doubles format like so:
Musharna @ Kee Berry
Ability: Synchronize
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 40 Def / 216 SDef
Bold Nature
- Baton Pass
- Psych Up
- Calm Mind
- Moonlight

This set helps for one of my gimmicky, but successful teams, where I boost up one Pokemon, Switch in the Musharna on a weak or an ineffective Physical hit, Psych Up my boosted Pokemon, Calm Mind, and Pass to a Special Sweeper, all while having a reliable recovery option. Check out my PsychPass thread for other options if you liked this one.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/psych-up-baton-pass.3495789/#post-5089512