Pokémon Pinsir

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I switched to Mold Breaker when it became clear that Hyper Cutter doesn't actually help against Intimidate, but I've always been wary of using it. After all, you get a good hit if you properly predict a Rotom switch-in, but if not, you're just using a weak attack while you spend a turn with lower defenses and you'll have to retain your low Speed on the next turn instead of getting rid of it that turn. It's such a risk, especially since with the lower Speed, you can't be as sure of outspeeding Rotom on the next turn if it survives.
 
Despite how much I love the fella (if you couldn't tell), regular Pinsir just doesn't cut it. Picking an ability based on the expectation that you'll use him as regular Pinsir seems mad to me. I especially wouldn't consider dropping SD because of the possibility of a Moxie boost (though I might drop it anyway for Substitute or even Protect).
Which is why I said afterwards that I prefer Hyper Cutter BECAUSE you M-Evolve him straight away. Did you actually read my comments on each one? I note that Moxie is tricky to use, and that Mold Breaker has no long term usefulness. Using regular Pinsir IS a viable strategy, but you have to remember that he will eventually M-evolve. The surprise factor helps too.

Hyper Cutter doesn't actually help against Intimidate.
Really? Is that taken from Showdown or in-game? I can't see why it doesn't work, based on my knowledge of Intimidate activating immediately (at least last generation), and M-evolving being in a lower priority bracket then switching.
 
Which is why I said afterwards that I prefer Hyper Cutter BECAUSE you M-Evolve him straight away. Did you actually read my comments on each one? I note that Moxie is tricky to use, and that Mold Breaker has no long term usefulness. Using regular Pinsir IS a viable strategy, but you have to remember that he will eventually M-evolve. The surprise factor helps too.
Yes, I did read it, sorry if I came off combative - I agree with you that HC is best, it's just that I'm really not seeing the merit of the others much at all considering the ultimate objective is to ME. It often struggles to find that turn to do so safely and making use of either ability (i.e. opportunistically killing something) gives the opponent a window to force it out pretty easily and possibly forces you to undergo another gauntlet of hazards if they're up.

On the Intimidate front, I was also under the impression that it occurs before ME?
 
Yes, I did read it, sorry if I came off combative - I agree with you that HC is best, it's just that I'm really not seeing the merit of the others much at all considering the ultimate objective is to ME. It often struggles to find that turn to do so safely and making use of either ability (i.e. opportunistically killing something) gives the opponent a window to force it out pretty easily and possibly forces you to undergo another gauntlet of hazards if they're up.

On the Intimidate front, I was also under the impression that it occurs before ME?
Yes, because switching happens before ME. For example, you can switch in Tyranitar against Mega Gengar on the turn it evolves to trap it.
 
everyone saying they are afraid of intimidaters i dont have a single problem with them with moxie, i switch into something i can force out, SD and mega evolve if the intimidater comes him i can still ohko it at +1 with return and get ride of him Landorus-T,gyarados,Salamence among others so running hyper cutters isnt much of a concern since very few teams even have an intimidator
 
Really? Is that taken from Showdown or in-game? I can't see why it doesn't work, based on my knowledge of Intimidate activating immediately (at least last generation), and M-evolving being in a lower priority bracket then switching.
I don't know why people are saying it doesn't work. In Battle Spot switching definitely takes place before Mega Evolution.
 
everyone saying they are afraid of intimidaters i dont have a single problem with them with moxie, i switch into something i can force out, SD and mega evolve if the intimidater comes him i can still ohko it at +1 with return and get ride of him Landorus-T,gyarados,Salamence among others so running hyper cutters isnt much of a concern since very few teams even have an intimidator
But if you SD and M-evolve straight away, why not use Hyper Cutter? Moxie doesn't offer benefits in that scenario, as you're not attacking.
 
But if you SD and M-evolve straight away, why not use Hyper Cutter? Moxie doesn't offer benefits in that scenario, as you're not attacking.
i mean when i cant get moxie, most of the time i sent him against something i can kill and get a boost from moxie, i love getting a boost from using quick atak on a weakneed pokemon or even retrun and earthquake on slower pokemons, then i dont fell the need to swords dance and can mega evolve and sweep right away
 
i mean when i cant get moxie, most of the time i sent him against something i can kill and get a boost from moxie, i love getting a boost from using quick atak on a weakneed pokemon or even retrun and earthquake on slower pokemons, then i dont fell the need to swords dance and can mega evolve and sweep right away
Your opponents don't take the opportunity to send in one of the myriad potentially faster things that can score a KO quite handily? Rotom-W perhaps? Talonflame?
 
Your opponents don't take the opportunity to send in one of the myriad potentially faster things that can score a KO quite handily? Rotom-W perhaps? Talonflame?
you dont just start a sweep when your oponent has a skarmory,tallonflame or a healthy rotow-w you need to pick your chance, always get ridde of those and bring pinsir when he can sweep, every pokemon needs his counters to be taken down by the rest of the team that is why you use a team around your mega

i use magnezone to take out skarmorys, i weaken rotow-w with entry hazards and leech seeds from my ferrothorn and use my rotow-w and stealth rock to counter tallonflame

you need to pick your moment not just send him in and hope for the best.
 
you dont just start a sweep when your oponent has a skarmory,tallonflame or a healthy rotow-w you need to pick your chance, always get ridde of those and bring pinsir when he can sweep, every pokemon needs his counters to be taken down by the rest of the team that is why you use a team around your mega

i use magnezone to take out skarmorys, i weaken rotow-w with entry hazards and leech seeds from my ferrothorn and use my rotow-w and stealth rock to counter tallonflame

you need to pick your moment not just send him in and hope for the best.
What would you recommend to fill the rest of the team? I've been using Excadrill for rapid spin and mold breaker to hit Rotom, Rotom-W for Skarmory/Talonflame, and Scolipede to baton pass a swords dance and extra speed for the MEvo turn, but I don't have any other solid team mates.
 
Has anyone tried a SubFlail set for it? I was thinking of a late game type one with only Flail and Quick Attack as coverage since at +2 and Jolly it does 83.79 - 98.77% to 252/252 Impish Skarm and 75.88 - 89.36% to SubMagnezone with Flail and can take a nice chunk out of standard CB Scizor (55.39 - 65.59%) with Quick Attack. Of course you'd need to have faster Pokémon out of the way but that's the case really with any MegaPinsir set.
 
Has anyone tried a SubFlail set for it? I was thinking of a late game type one with only Flail and Quick Attack as coverage since at +2 and Jolly it does 83.79 - 98.77% to 252/252 Impish Skarm and 75.88 - 89.36% to SubMagnezone with Flail and can take a nice chunk out of standard CB Scizor (55.39 - 65.59%) with Quick Attack. Of course you'd need to have faster Pokémon out of the way but that's the case really with any MegaPinsir set.
The problem with using Substitute to get to low health is that unless you take a hit first, Flail is going to be only 80 Base power. And even Mega-Pinsir's bulk isn't exactly stellar. It could potentially work on a Bulk up set, but you'd have to watch out for special attackers.
 
The problem with using Substitute to get to low health is that unless you take a hit first, Flail is going to be only 80 Base power. And even Mega-Pinsir's bulk isn't exactly stellar. It could potentially work on a Bulk up set, but you'd have to watch out for special attackers.
I'm pretty sure if your HP isn't divisible by 4 you can drop to 1HP (example: with 101HP your Substitutes cost 25HP each, so you can use four of them and end up on 1HP). Which would let you get to the maximum BP via Substituting.
 
I'm pretty sure if your HP isn't divisible by 4 you can drop to 1HP (example: with 101HP your Substitutes cost 25HP each, so you can use four of them and end up on 1HP). Which would let you get to the maximum BP via Substituting.
Aaaand I'm an idiot. That always baffled me though. I understand rounding down for stats and the like, but rounding down for costs made no sense to me.

Anyway, you're right, but I'm not sure it's worth the extra base power anyway. His examples make no sense. No coverage if you run Flail, Sub and QA and SD seems to me a bit pointless if the coverage would let you hit those things in the first place: Magnezone fears Earthquake more unless it uses Magnet Rise. Skarmory is better dealt with by switching to a special attacker, and Scizor can be dealt with by switching, preferably to your own Magnezone (In fact, why has he included it in his calcs? That applies for any set with QA and SD). If there are real threats which Flail can take care of that Return can't (i.e OHKO rather than 2HKO) than it's worth consideration. Until then...
 
I think Moxie is the best ability. You should be using Pinsir as a revenge killer, getting the +1, then morphing. He's got quick attack. If you can't set up a single opportunity all match long to force a switch or get a revenge kill, your team has problems, not Pinsir.

MPinsir is not that bulky anyway, so if regular Pinsir takes some damage and leaves you with little HP by the time you mega evolve, who cares? If you get enough attack boosts you can kill almost anything with quick attack anyway.
 
How essential to MegaPinsir is Quick Attack?
Very. Especially since it doesn't have a whole lot of other worthwhile options.

Return / Double-Edge for a main attack (when DE gets released)
Earthquake for coverage
Quick Attack for priority
Swords Dance / Substitute / Bulk Up for helping the above moves work out right

Those are all it needs; they cover most possible uses for other moves.
 
I think Moxie is the best ability. You should be using Pinsir as a revenge killer, getting the +1, then morphing. He's got quick attack. If you can't set up a single opportunity all match long to force a switch or get a revenge kill, your team has problems, not Pinsir.

MPinsir is not that bulky anyway, so if regular Pinsir takes some damage and leaves you with little HP by the time you mega evolve, who cares? If you get enough attack boosts you can kill almost anything with quick attack anyway.
I reeeeaaaally don't know about that. A revenge killer with x4 SR weakness? Yeah, no thanks.

How essential to MegaPinsir is Quick Attack?
From my experience, very. As a late game sweeper he's not fast enough or bulky enough to be without priority.
 
Has anyone tried a SubFlail set for it? I was thinking of a late game type one with only Flail and Quick Attack as coverage since at +2 and Jolly it does 83.79 - 98.77% to 252/252 Impish Skarm and 75.88 - 89.36% to SubMagnezone with Flail and can take a nice chunk out of standard CB Scizor (55.39 - 65.59%) with Quick Attack. Of course you'd need to have faster Pokémon out of the way but that's the case really with any MegaPinsir set.
Wat? It does more damage to Skarm than to Mag?
 
What happens when Double-Edge is available, since it and Quick Attack are not compatible?
Honestly, I'd still go with Return even if Double Edge is available. Quick Attack is vital, plus, 198 BP flying move from 155 base attack is deadly. Anything more might just be overkill, and whenever I've used Pinsir, he never seems to be at more than 50% health when he starts his sweep. Recoil sucks.
 
What happens when Double-Edge is available, since it and Quick Attack are not compatible?
Oh, they aren't? In that case, just scratch Double-Edge. Return, Earthquake, and Quick Attack are all mandatory and all the direct offense it needs. Double-Edge was already dicey enough just from the recoil; it's definitely not worth giving up priority.
 
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