The Double Battle Metagame (GBU)

Sooooo, I've been out of touch with the Doubles metagame since... last year's VGC. Can someone fill me in about the current metagame? Does good ol' Trick Room still kick everybody's ass? Are weather teams as prelevant as ever? How about Goodstuffs?
 
EVERYONE uses weather. Auto Weather is everywhere onw that Politoad and Ninetails get Drizzle/Drought. Trick is still popular and still kicks but, Tailwind/goodstuffs are pretty common now (Especially in this years VGC.) And hax is the most prevalent thing in the meta. Always was, and always will be :P.

Over all, it's much better than singles.
 
Thanks so much. Would a double-Fake Out be viable? If so, what would be good Pokémon to use it?
In teams where I've had more than one Fake Out user and they've sometimes been out at the same time, I've found very little use for Fake Out. Its main purpose (among all of them, at least as far as I've seen) is to stall one opponent when your other ally is able to take out the other opponent. Doing two at the same time would only give both opponents some damage; it would be a "dead turn" and get little done. Then, the following turn, you would not have the advantage of stalling one of them described above.
 
In teams where I've had more than one Fake Out user and they've sometimes been out at the same time, I've found very little use for Fake Out. Its main purpose (among all of them, at least as far as I've seen) is to stall one opponent when your other ally is able to take out the other opponent. Doing two at the same time would only give both opponents some damage; it would be a "dead turn" and get little done. Then, the following turn, you would not have the advantage of stalling one of them described above.
Thanks again! How are Follow Me and Rage Powder supposed to be used? And can you PM me a guide to Doubles or your personal experience? Thanks for your help.
 
Thanks again! How are Follow Me and Rage Powder supposed to be used? And can you PM me a guide to Doubles or your personal experience? Thanks for your help.
Rage Powder and Follow Me are best used alongside a frail set-up sweeper, a Trick Room starter, a Tailwind starter, or a Smeargle using Dark Void. The best users are:
Togekiss - Bulky, decent Speed, immune to Ground, instant recovery in Roost, can Heal Bell, has Extremespeed for priority if you need it (Works better alongside Tailwind user than Trick Room)
Amoonguss - Bulky, decent SpA, has Spore, Leech Seed, Synthesis, and Giga Drain (Works better alongside Trick Room starter than Tailwind)

Those are, in my opinion, the best users of Follow Me and Rage Powder respectively. However, I've seen some others use Follow Me, although they're not great with it:
Electivire
Lucario
Eviolite Togetic (Okay, this one is kinda good, but I prefer Togekiss)

In my experiences with Follow Me, it's best to give that Pokémon a Sitrus Berry since it activates after an attack, not at the end of the turn. However, if you're just using them normally with Follow Me as a bonus, then another item can be used. For the frailer users, a Focus Sash could be used to ensure you absorb both of the opponent's attacks.

I've played like 200 hours worth of Double battles on PBR, so I think I know how to play them, but Ashenlock is much more experienced with Gen V Doubles than I am
 

soul_survivor

VGCPL Champion
jik people were still wondering what happens if all 4 pokemon of each team got ko'd at the same time the person who used the move/ability wins.
ex: explosion ko's everything. player who used explosion wins.

I wrote that because i had a battle just like the said situation. Heres the battle for reference

62-87645-86695 ( though if it wasnt for heat wave burn, this wouldnt have happened, but thats pokemon)
 
Personally it seems to me that the user of Explosion should lose, since Explosion (and moves in general) have a ~12% wide range damage and thus may sometimes potentially not KO a given opponent with set defenses, while no matter how many times the user uses Explosion, in every situation, regardless of luck, Explosion absolutely always KO's its user. But that's just my thoughts on it.

The situation is so rare anyway that I don't think it's possible to have strong feelings about this particular mechanic of the game. In Gen IV I'm sure it happened plenty, and among the folks who were subject to its discretion there must have been at least one person who had the worst of luck and fell prey continuously to the losing end of the Self-KO clause, but now that Explosion is so much less viable (if it is viable at all) in Double Battles, people barely even notice the rulings in this matter. Thank you however for bringing this up; posting info about the mechanics of double battles or the GBU in general is always welcome.
 

cosmicexplorer

pewpewpew
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
While Tailwind was extremely prominent in VGC 2011, I've seen very little of it in GBU doubles. That's probably at least partly because Tornadus is much less prevalent in GBU. My question is: are Tailwind teams viable, or is it just used as an extra "boost" to a goodstuffs team?

My own observations: Tailwind has fallen by the wayside because it's quite frankly overshadowed by weather offense, especially rain, with so many viable Swift Swim users. Weather teams also don't have to wait a turn and possibly sacrifice a Pokemon to get their Speed boost. However, Tailwind can be used to check weather offense, taking advantage of the otherwise low Speed of weather abusers and using their superior Speed and powerful attackers such as Garchomp to take out weather quickly.

I'd like to hear the thoughts of others on this. How viable is Tailwind, and what strategies does it do well or poorly against? What Pokemon work well in Tailwind teams?
 

soul_survivor

VGCPL Champion
Well in my experience tailwind can be useful as a suprise factor, but isn't as great as vgc 11, Mainly because of unpredictably. Many pokemon can run tw, but wastes a slot, and rain slaughter tw. the only efficient users are the two pranksters whismicott and tornadus mainly because No matter what your sure of getting it up. Then though tw only last for 3 turns. setting up is 1 turn. The next turn your opponents most likely gonna double protect, and now you have one turn to attempt to sweep.

So in conclusion it has its uses, as double speed can ko a weather boosters, but of course The major downfall is only 2 turns to do something.
 

muffinhead

b202 wifi vgc
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
^Tailwind lasts for 4 turns as of gen 5. I am inn complete agreement with cosmicexplorer, weather really just makes tailwind look lame.

however, tailwind functions incredibly well against the occasional goodstuff/bunch of mons thrown together teams.
 
I agree with y'all. One of my original worries when Solace began the GBU Pokedex project was that folks who identified largely with the VGC2011 metagame would try to apply the exact same principles to the GBU Double Battle metagame, or basically use the exact same threats and numbers except replace Gen V Pokemon for Gen I - Gen V Pokemon. Obviously I came to see that that wasn't the case, that the people writing the analyses for Double Battles were clearly well-versed in the GBU metagame(s), but before that, when I was still uncertain, one of my worries within the concern was that people would imagine Tailwind to be a much bigger deal than it really is.

That's not to say Tailwind is "bad," only, while (and this is just as far as I've seen) Tailwind and Trick Room were viewed as relative equals in the VGC, it's very different in the GBU. Tailwind enjoys a few advantages over Trick Room, like (up to) +1 speed priority versus a much lower number, but that doesn't take away some of the chief advantages of Trick Room. One of these is that Trick Room Pokemon don't need any EV investment in Spe unless they're trying to outrun another TR-usable Pokemon outside of the TR environment. They get to put that into their defenses; plus, if two Pokemon have about the same BST, and one has great Spe and the other abysmal Spe, the latter is going to get to have those numbers in another stat, AND be "faster" than the former in TR. Another is the so-called "immunity" to effects like Icy Wind and Thunder Wave, which, while still hindering the TR Pokemon through damage or full paralysis, actually make the Pokemon faster rather than slower. The most important factor in favor of TR, I think, is that it lasts one more turn than Tailwind. This is not just because it gives one more turn of favorable conditions to the TR team, but, since double Protecting nullifies 2/3 of the Tailwind-Pokemon's turns of damage and only 1/2 of the TR Pokemon's, and since against skillful players Protect is so common, one can almost think of Trick Room as getting twice as many turns of unmitigated damage.

Weather teams are an entirely different story, and can win out in turn one just by fast Fake Outs (Ludicolo, for instance, outspeeding any other Fake Outer in rain, which puts you at an advantage unless the foe also chose, say, Tornadus + Ludicolo, predicting your rain team; but this is pretty unlikely) and by the sheer power of rain- or sun-boosted moves, to give a couple examples. One of the fun things about a rain team versus a Tailwind team is that the foe never seems to know that Ludicolo has the faster Fake Out than, say, Mienshao in the rain. Ludicolo Fake Out Tornadus, Mienshao Fake Outs Ludicolo uselessly, and I write a little mark to indicate the foe D/C'd before it even happens, because it's that predictable at that point.

Another factor in Tailwind that comes to mind (which isn't really a reason against it, only something I've noticed) is that you'll find that your goodstuff, medium-Spe Pokemon outspeed the foes even outside of Tailwind 80% of the battles. As far as I've seen, only fairly dedicated players use Choice Scarfs, partially because of the difficulty of obtaining one this generation and partially because it's an unattractive option for players who haven't tailored their Pokemon for specific party roles. Scarfs are one of the big things that do Tailwind parties in. Of course, you can have Pokemon that are fast enough to outspeed any Scarfer when Tailwind is up on your side, but then you lose out on attack power unless you're using goodstuffs Pokemon like Latios. Trick Room, on the other hand, doesn't suffer as much with having to hit certain marks; rather, TR-usable Pokemon are sort of "rewarded" for losing Spe by getting that number often replenished in another stat.

With the existence of the HG/SS tutors, Tailwind gains some viability in disguising itself within uncommon Pokemon, but those Pokemon are very often Flying-types (with the occasional Levitator or Water-type) and if they rose to any level of popularity, they would probably become easy enough to spot that one of your two-man vanguard could KO one of them right off the bat. There aren't very many bulky, non-Uber users of the move. Whereas Trick Room is swimming with them (though with also a sizeable weakness to a few different types), many of which are often able to take a supereffective hit and still set up TR, if your Tailwind Pokemon doesn't have Priority or is named Suicune or Latias, you will encounter situations where the move doesn't go off as planned.

I would like to see what people can do with Tailwind, but I don't see it taking over the metagame. There are just too many powerhouses duking it out already for Tailwind to get an edge in. I remember thinking it was neat way back when, and not pursuing it in spite of that interest, and now I'm not eager to try it out again; it's at the back of my list of teams-to-build. I'd be honored if y'all would post Tailwind teams you've used, whether or not successfully. Actually, you can post any sort of team you've used anytime you want, only Tailwind is on my mind at the moment.

I'll write some more later, I need to prepare for class. If you guys want to make these posts collections of your thoughts on the metagame in general, I can add them to the OP (And if you think you already made a post that deserves a hyperlink, feel free to point it out to me).
 
I battled a Japanese player last night that had the damnedest combo. @_@

He/she lead with Terrakion and Whimsicott.

Whimsicott used Beat Up, and attacked his/her own Terrakion to start the battle at +3 Atk Terrakion (Justified boosted on the individual Beat Up hits).

Terrakion used Rock Slide to OHKO both, my Abomasnow, and Zapdos leads.
 
Actually, that is a pretty common strategy. The strategy is probably better used by Weavile, as it is less expected. Whenever I see a Whimsicott and Terrakion, I just run something to kill Terrakion in my lead spot.
 
Yeah, it's pretty common, as DreamTalon stated. On teams that are VGC2011-compatible I see them a lot. I don't want to write about this more than I already have in other posts, but basically I just Fake Out + Ice Beam (or whatever) Whimsicott while Terrakion uses Protect, which is what the opponent chooses most of the time.

I haven't tried Weavile but I've heard good things. Only trouble I can see is having two Fighting-weak Pokemon together at once.
 

soul_survivor

VGCPL Champion
Yeah, it's pretty common, as DreamTalon stated. On teams that are VGC2011-compatible I see them a lot. I don't want to write about this more than I already have in other posts, but basically I just Fake Out + Ice Beam (or whatever) Whimsicott while Terrakion uses Protect, which is what the opponent chooses most of the time.

I haven't tried Weavile but I've heard good things. Only trouble I can see is having two Fighting-weak Pokemon together at once.
My main team right now is a beat up combo with weaville.(My wins well soar over my losses) As they do have a huge fighting weakness, They are more offensive then terracott. ice punch destroys all genies which are counters to terrakion. As well as ohkoing the lati twins. Also i run chople on terra, and once i use beat up, im not really afraid of fighting types like scrafty, conkeldurr, and top as sacred sword now ohko's all of them. Also Always run fighting resist back ups like ghost pokemon, or latios. The only real problem is weather boosters. Thats when i use alternative leads.
 

muffinhead

b202 wifi vgc
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
I do not like the Beat Up Weavile + Terrakion lead for several reasons. First of all, Weavile has the fastest Fake Out, but can't use it if Terrakion needs Attack boosts. Second, Whimsicott can set up Tailwind if need be, but Weavile can't. Whimsicott has Prankster Encore for Fake Outs, Charm for Conkeldurr / Hitmontop / whatever, and a long list of moves that help Terrakion do its job of getting KOes. Weavile only has Taunt.

Dont get me wrong, Terrakion loves Fake Out support and it is a good offensive lead combo, but not if you are going to waste Weavile's potential on Beating Up Terrakion.
 
Fair enough. The Fake Out miss is slightly annoying. However, how many times do people double protect on Fake Out? That is the advantage.
 

cosmicexplorer

pewpewpew
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Double protecting on Fake Out is not a good idea at all, especially against so obvious a combo as Weavile + Terrakion. I don't think that's an advantage at all.
 
A disruptive tactic I've used successfully was a team of Alomomola, Virizion, Rotom-Mow and Dragonite.

The premise of the team was to use Alomomola to Soak the opposing pokemon and use my stable of attacking pokemon with moves aimed at destroying water types; Leave Blade, Thunderpunch, Thunderbolt etc boosting them with Helping Hand to guarantee KO's.

It also has the added effect of removing the opposing team's STAB bonuses thus turning some OHKO's on my team into 2HKO's and allowing my team to survive long enough to win.

Also, if a mon switched in that countered one of my own, I could then use Soak on my team-mate to make it a water type and remove a super effective hit on them.

Alomomola@Mental Herb/Wacan Berry
ability: Healer
nature: Careful
evs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD

Wish
Protect
Soak
Helping Hand

Pure taunt bait unless running a Mental Herb I know, but it's a gimmicky strategy that has taken unprepared folks by suprise as none of my team are hit super effectively by EQ and only Dragonite takes SE damage from Rock Slide which Multiscale and good prediction with Roost can avoid. The team is weak to Ice/Fire moves though which is where removing STABS or type weakness from my team helps immensely.
 
I agree that double-Protecting against something that will obviously set up an effect is a bad idea, but not against everything. There wasn't much that my Politoed + Ludicolo combo could possibly have done all those times that the foe (I think wisely) double-Protected that would have made their double-Protecting dangerous to them; I got an Absorb Bulb boost on Ludicolo, but that hardly overcompensates the loss of Fake Out. Maybe that's just because I had a less than optimal lead; I could believe that. But part of the GBU game is reading your opponent: Usually from his wincount and choice of Pokemon, I can tell if he's the kind of person who is just going to use Fake Out just under the premise of it being a good move in general, while attacking with the other Pokemon, or if he's going to set up Trick Room with the other and so me double-Protecting is not advantageous.

Disclaimer before any of us get into an argument: No, it is not possible to 100% tell what the foe is going to do by his wincount and team roster, and no, wincount isn't the absolute litmus test for whether or not a player is "good." I promise I don't mean that by what I said.

I've probably said this to death, and will do so in the future, but: I'm speaking from experience with everything I said.

---------------------------------------------------------------

In fact, I might as well say here one thing most of us can agree upon: The GBU is not a hard-and-fast metagame. There are all kinds of factors that are in play: whether or not the Pokemon are fully leveled, whether or not all of them are wearing items, whether or not they're using a new team with which they are unfamiliar, whether or not they just happened to have the worst possible leads available, whether or not their Pokemon are of RNG-quality stats or just above average stats, whether or not the player has any experience at all in their metagame... If those don't illustrate my point well, it's this: There isn't a real "all other things equal" situation in Pokemon, because all other things are never quite equal. It's a very graded, relative thing to measure.

I'm afraid I may have gotten everything muddled up here... I didn't mean to distract from the point I was initially trying to respond to.
 

soul_survivor

VGCPL Champion
I believe double-protecting,1st turn is a bad idea, as thats the turn people are setting up on. Also i agree with ashenlock, you don't know your opponent until you battle him.

Not to stir argument, but in my experience when have you battled a terracott that didn't protect terrakion, and set up tw. This is easily stopped by fake out+powerful attack. Im not saying That there aren't smart users of terracott that dont mindlessly protect and tw. The same cant be done on terraville. All im saying is that terraville is quite different than terracott. as i believe terraville is more offensive allowing you to attack with two mons then leaving terrakion to fight by himself and whismicott trying to support.
 
I'm experimenting with a Gliscor set utilizing Feint. Predict which opponent will Protect and open it up to its partner's attack or your own, and at the very least it defeats Sashes and Sturdy like any priority. So far the results are decent. Better EVs would be nice, I'm not sure whether to lean more offensive or use a typical defensive one. I stuck in enough speed to outspeed standard Gliscor (and the ones who think they're smart and add a point or two) in order to get the first Ice Fang.

Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Poison Heal
Impish
190 HP/100 Atk/84 Spe/116 Def (Probably inefficient spread)
Feint
Protect
EQ
Ice Fang
 

cosmicexplorer

pewpewpew
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
I've never really found Feint to be useful enough to be worth the trouble of using it at all. Which Pokemon can take advantage of Gliscor using Feint well? Is there any reason you chose Gliscor in particular?
 
I like Feint personally, but I think that, unless your opponent double-Protects, it doesn't make itself worth the moveslot. If you correctly predict that one certain foe is going to Protect, you can remove that Protect with Feint and then KO it with Gliscor's ally. But the Feint just basically cancelled out the Protect, and if you know that the other one's NOT going to Protect, why not gang up on it? If Feint is just an auxiliary move on a still very useful Pokemon, reserved for a few situations, that's fine I suppose, but don't sacrifice a valuable moveslot--or a valuable team member--to get access to Feint.
 
Feint is useful not only as a protect breaker but as a +2 priority move, especially if the pokemon has no other access to priority.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top