The Next Best Thing v2 - Latios

[iamdanielcruces]

I read that paragraph carefully, and I even saw the relation to your comments about SBZam being a good teammate to Landorus / Keldeo. Now, the thing about Celebi is that Shadow Ball does 42.1%-50% to standard 252/236+ Celebi. Add hazards, and the onion is almost (and yes, almost is not 100% of the time) a guaranteed 2HKO.

My main gripe about your set is not that it doesn't work (it does; I have even used SB in the past, not with that specific set), but that it's not so much a set, as another slash in the only set Alakazam has. And that's to deal with a particular mon that is not even listed among its standard counters, and to help "Keldeo and/or Landorus".

 

[AccidentalGreed]

Honestly Shadow Ball is easily the most irreplaceable move in terms of overall usefulness and coverage. Shadow Ball is also a relic from DPP OU used to hit Rotom-A, so the only relevant target Alakazam hits with Shadow Ball is mostly Jellicent amongst other overspecific targets. These targets also tend to be hit by Signal Beam, which offers wider coverage with Psychic/Psyshock, boasts similar base power, and allows Alakazam to get past SpD Celebi much easier.

In fact, unless a Pokemon lacks Signal Beam or has a list of coverage moves that doesn't require it, I question the use of Shadow Ball over Signal Beam as a coverage move these days.

 

[GOthee]

Alakazam (F) @ Life Orb/Lum berry/Ghost Gem
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Focus Blast
- Psychic
- Calm Mind
- Shadow Ball

Why rely on Signal beam to defeat Celebi. I think that with this Mvoeset you can defeat it with jsut Shadow ball. If you calm mind on the Switch you can Boost your Huge special attack to levels where not even Celebi can handle you. If you fear the Thunder Wave you can run a Lum berry so you can grab even a 2nd boost with Calm mind if you predic correctly. The alst item choice would be Ghost Gem, with that in hand you can Calm mind on the switch and still hit celebi hard enough he is practically dead if not. I dont knwo how to run calculatiosn, but if anyone can it would be great.

 

[Usatoday]

Alakazam (F) @ Life Orb/Lum berry/Ghost Gem
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Focus Blast
- Psychic
- Calm Mind
- Shadow Ball

Why rely on Signal beam to defeat Celebi. I think that with this Mvoeset you can defeat it with jsut Shadow ball. If you calm mind on the Switch you can Boost your Huge special attack to levels where not even Celebi can handle you. If you fear the Thunder Wave you can run a Lum berry so you can grab even a 2nd boost with Calm mind if you predic correctly. The alst item choice would be Ghost Gem, with that in hand you can Calm mind on the switch and still hit celebi hard enough he is practically dead if not. I dont knwo how to run calculatiosn, but if anyone can it would be great.

252SpAtk Life Orb Alakazam (Neutral) Shadow Ball vs 252HP/252SpDef Leftovers Celebi (+SpDef): 41% - 49% (168 - 200 HP). Guaranteed 3HKO.
252SpAtk Life Orb +1 Alakazam (Neutral) Shadow Ball vs 252HP/252SpDef Leftovers Celebi (+SpDef): 62% - 73% (252 - 298 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.
252SpAtk Ghost Gem +1 Alakazam (Neutral) Shadow Ball vs 252HP/252SpDef Leftovers Celebi (+SpDef): 71% - 84% (290 - 342 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.
252SpAtk +1 Alakazam (Neutral) Signal Beam vs 252HP/252SpDef Leftovers Celebi (+SpDef): 90% - 106% (364 - 432 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO. 41% chance to OHKO.
252SpAtk Life Orb +1 Alakazam (Neutral) Signal Beam vs 252HP/252SpDef Leftovers Celebi (+SpDef): 116% - 138% (472 - 560 HP). Guaranteed OHKO. As you can see signal is clearly better for celebii but i believe that alakazam on the shadow ball is something better replace by signal beam or hp fire for scizor or celebii

 

[thenewguy24]

Alakazam (F) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Psyshock
- Shadow Ball
- Encore
- Focus Blast

A nice little twist on the standard sash alakazam with encore. This allows for alakazam to stop cm rachi, sub roost kyurem, baton pass teams, and a whole bunch more thanks to his blazing speed and guaranteed survival with the sash. This set also works wonders with hazards as you can encore a mon locking them into an undesired move, causing a switch racking up damage. The amount of times encore has either cause rage quits or saved my ass is far too many to not have on my future alakazam sets.

 

[Curtains]

congrats to lavos for winning...but that set is really bad though....

but...

I think signal beam alakazam is a good set and probably the most reasonable out of all sets shown so far...I really tried to find some reason to hate it but i guess it makes sense. It is not really original as i have seen signal beam since DP but i guess you get past one of ala's best counters. Its just hard to use anything else shown before that. Trick sets are tough because of ala's atrocious defense. Also you would be basically trading momentum for a burned special counter... I don't think that is too realistic for such an attacking based metagame. You would be better using something with a little more bulk like a reuniclus. So my vote will probably be for the sig beam set. You Can't really steer far away from the standard sets with zam.

 

[youngjake93]

I feel like trickscarfzam has been the best suggested set so far mainly because of Keldeo, but because of the speed creeping meta in general. Ruining a special wall with trick can allow you to push through stall teams too.

 

[AccidentalGreed]

Seriously though, Shadow Ball's main purpose is to hit threats that wall or easily take Focus Blast and Alakazam's chosen Psychic-type move. Signal Beam does just that, with the main and possibly only exception being Jellicent. Like I said, Shadow Ball was a relic from DPP used mainly because there were a lot more Ghost-types to experiment with, mainly Rotom-A.

Today, Gengar and Jellicent are pretty much the only two OU Ghost-types available, and Gengar is easily taken care of. Depending on Alakazam's coverage or Jellicent's set, Jellicent can also be beaten down somehow. Additionally, Celebi is also popular as hell, and Signal Beam hits nearly the same targets Shadow Ball does for similar damage (Latias, Latios, and other opposing Psychic-types).

Soo in other words if we're talking about Pokemon like Alakazam or Jolteon (who was unable to hit Rotom-A formes without Shadow Ball back then), Signal Beam definitely > Shadow Ball this time.

 

[dcae]

I also think Signal Beam is the best possible coverage move for it. Also, regarding Jellicent and Shadow Ball, I believe Psyshock actually hits Spe ially Defensive Jellicent, the most common set, harder than Shadow Ball would. Thus, Shadow Ball is outclassed there too, making Signal Beam the undisputed superior option in the slot. I think it should probably become the new standard move used for Sash or LO Alakazam.

 

[HabibsHotDogs]

Seriously though, Shadow Ball's main purpose is to hit threats that wall or easily take Focus Blast and Alakazam's chosen Psychic-type move. Signal Beam does just that, with the main and possibly only exception being Jellicent. Like I said, Shadow Ball was a relic from DPP used mainly because there were a lot more Ghost-types to experiment with, mainly Rotom-A.

Today, Gengar and Jellicent are pretty much the only two OU Ghost-types available, and Gengar is easily taken care of. Depending on Alakazam's coverage or Jellicent's set, Jellicent can also be beaten down somehow. Additionally, Celebi is also popular as hell, and Signal Beam hits nearly the same targets Shadow Ball does for similar damage (Latias, Latios, and other opposing Psychic-types).

Soo in other words if we're talking about Pokemon like Alakazam or Jolteon (who was unable to hit Rotom-A formes without Shadow Ball back then), Signal Beam definitely > Shadow Ball this time.

Alakazam can barely ko latios/latias/starmie with a life orb'ed shadow ball after they've taken some former damage.. approximately 7% less power is more significant then you give it credit for when a Latios you're supposed to "revenge" survives with 3hp, yes it's happened to me..

 

[Arcticblast]

If you're trying to use Alakazam to revenge things (like Latios), you should be using Focus Sash, not Life Orb, so the power drop against Latios really isn't that significant when you're only doing enough damage to 2HKO regardless.

 

[iamdanielcruces]

OK, I'm gonna go against myself here for a bit. Shadow Ball has only two distinct advantages over Signal Beam: Base Power and super-effective coverage.

-After quite a bit of calcs, I've found that the 5BP difference amounts to 2-3% damage on neutral hits, or around 5-6% on super effective ones. Will it make a difference? Of course it will, but much (much) less frequently than Focus Blast's accuracy.

-The main difference comes with SE coverage. Actually, Ghost only covers one more type (Ghost itself), bringing the total to 13 types, vs. 12 for Bug, though Bug opens the possibility of 4x SE hits. As it has been said, Jellicent is the only relevant Ghost we need to consider, and Psyshock takes care of its SpDef set incredibly better than Shadow Ball (max. 68.3% vs. max. 48.0%, respectively).

That being said, there are other viable Ghost types in OU (5, according to the Viability Ranking Thread), even if they are as "successful" as Cuba's national soccer team. And my other opinions stay the same. As it is now, TrickScarf is the set I'd vote for.

I'm not saying that SignalZam is not a good set, and it probably deserves to be standard (as long as Shadow Tag Chandelure remains unreleased, at least).

 

[Joeyboy]

Voting Period for Alakazam starts now, here are links to each set you can vote for:

• Dcae
• Issues
• Dr Ciel
• Icecream
• ThunderBlunder
• ThePillsburyDoughBoy
• Lavos Spawn
• gengarsnemisis
• Hitmonleet
• vyomov
• kakuna
• Kidogo
• HabibsHotDogs
• jidan
• iamdanielcruces
• Meru
• GOthee
• thenewguy24

For voting, just put the username of the person you wish to vote for in bold and if you want to really show your stuff, a short 1 or 2 sentence explanation for why you chose that set. Voting will be open for 2-ish days! Feel free to VM or PM me any suggestions for the next test subject if you have any.

 

[Hot N Cold]

Meru

 

[AccidentalGreed]

I love how most of the Alakazam sets are pretty much the same, except with deviances in a single item slot or move.

But yeah, standard is good, and so is Signal Beam (might revamp the analysis). Meru.

 

[stairwaytohell]

Meru

 

[Curtains]

Trick is really situational. You trick a scarf and then what? Or you switch a flame orb and then what? Nobody is switching a tyranitar into a full health alakazam unless you are planning on having it killed for another reason. Alakazam is an attacking pokemon. All the trick and taunt sets other pokemon can simply do better. Reunculus does flame orb tricking 100 x better. Other pokemon can taunt and not get koed with the right move. Other gimmicks like guard split really don't fit with alakazam. Encore is okay but ala really doesn't have any way to abuse it. Also you don't want to encore an attacking move as it gets at least 2hkoed by anything worth a damn.

So with that said meru's set really encompasses the theme of "next best thing". Yes it is only a one move difference from the standard sets. But the other gimmicks presented don't really have a place in OU. It makes sense to use a weaker move to hit one of its best counters extremely hard. Besides, it still hits the other pokemon like lati@s for basically the same amount. So you really aren't losing anything.

-just curious what makes charge beam better than just calm mind?

so

MERU

 

[gengarsnemisis]

ThunderBlunder
This set actually works alot better than I thought it would, netting some pretty sweet sweeps. Sweet set.

Anywyas, signal beam instead of shadow ball is pretty much the standard nowadays.

 

[Mylo Xyloto]

Meru

 

[Lork]

thunderblunder. charge beam is dope

 

[Lohgock]

ThunderBlunder

 

[iamdanielcruces]

Lavos Spawn

Revenging Scarf Keldeo/Terrakion/whatever? Screwing up walls? Count me in. This is a more unorthodox, and potentially hilarious way of dealing with Celebi/Jirachi (other than ScarfRachi, duh).

 

[Lavos]

my trick set is good but i voted for myself last time so

thunderblunder

at least charge beam is kinda creative? it can nab a boost on the rk and then scare teams more than it would normally, which is interesting. i mean lol if you're gonna vote for meru then this is hardly a project emphasizing creativity, i've been running signal beam for months and thought it was the dead standard. dunno why that's so special to put it in a set description with some flashy gifs and cute presentation...whatever. i still love you meru don't be so aesthetically appealing next time though!

congrats to lavos for winning...but that set is really bad though....

 

[Prinz]

Meru

 

[youngjake93]

Lavos Spawn
While signal beam on standard zam is good, I think that trickscarf uses more of zam's potential and allows it to do more than one job