VGC Ask a Simple Question, Get a Simple Answer - Mark II

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Dozz

Has anyone in this family ever seen a chicken?
is an Artist Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnus
The next "real life" tournament for the US is Nationals, but there's another international challenge in June I believe.
 
hathater said:
breloom or scizor? they both have technician, priority stab etc. scizor has a better typing, while breloom has spore.

Well hathater, it solely depends on what your team needs, Scizor's typing is very nice except being weak to common fire moves, and Bullet Punch Technician Steel Gem can't be beat. While Breloom, has better offensive typiing with both grass and fighting. So it essentially depends on your team, it's needs, and it's weaknesses.
 
breloom or scizor? they both have technician, priority stab etc. scizor has a better typing, while breloom has spore.
No offense, but this is kind of a stupid question, and a pretty vague one at that. The logic in the question is like comparing apples to oranges: you can't label them similar because "they have Technician and priority STAB". Both have completely different roles on a team and both have different counters. Which one you're going to use depends on what the rest of your team looks like.

However, if you're deciding which to start with to make a new team, here is what both are like:

Scizor
- Has these attacks to choose from (excluding his priority): Bug Bite, Acrobatics, and Nature Power (which, powered by an Occa Berry, is a Technician-boosted Fire move to hit other Steel-types).
- Has a lone weakness to Fire
- He makes a good user of Swords Dance and can reliably get it up once
- Is is a simultaneous Dragon resist and weather counter, being able to handle Abomasnow and Tyranitar.
- Bug Bite 2HKOs most Cresselia right through whatever berry they're using
- In a flexible speed tier so he can be used in either Tailwind or Trick Room
- Speaking of which, he learns Tailwind, and has the bulk and resistances to set it up
- Because of his limited selection of viable moves and great typing (offensively and defensively), he's a very easy and straightforward Pokemon to use.
- Keep him away from as many special attacks as possible, no matter the set
- Dragons appreciate having him around, because he removes Abomasnow, Latios, and Cresselia (and Cress almost always has either Ice Beam, Icy Wind, or Thunder Wave). In turn, Dragons resist and threaten Fire-types, and a Dragon Gem Draco Meteor from Latios or Hydreigon very often KOs his best counter: Rotom-W.


Breloom
- His priority STAB has much better coverage than Bullet Punch
- Bullet Seed can break Focus Sashes and Substitutes
- He cannot handle Cresselia - rather, he is countered by it. This can somewhat be circumvented by having Spore, but you would have to invest in Spe a lot to catch Cress off-guard and Spore it before it causes trouble.
- Less bulk and more weaknesses makes Focus Sash a viable item (especially if you opt for a speedy spread). Scizor would never need a sash.
- However, unlike Scizor, Rain can actually help him survive Fire-type attacks.
- He can't do much against other Fighting-types
- Breloom is tougher to use, because using Spore effectively takes good prediction (against tougher players), and he has more type weaknesses to worry about. Regardless, the payoff of using him right is pretty great.
- He can beat Rotom-W and Gastrodon. Scizor absolutely cannot fight Rotom, and he struggles with the latter.
- Since Spore is his biggest niche, you want to have a Fake Out user. Or even a Taunt user to prevent the opponent from using Protect. Prankster Liepard can do both.
- I've only used him once (as opposed to using Scizor for months), but I found he works best on a rain team. He is less weak to Fire, Spore is great, and he can beat some Pokemon that give rain trouble (Rotom, Gastrodon, Tyranitar, Abomasnow, etc.).

That's all I can think of for now
 
I download some pokemon's from the Pokecheck and the legality check is all green but the iv's is orange,is this valid to participate a vgc? im scared.
 
Pokécheck reckons a bunch of my non-RNG'd Pokémon are suspicious because of how good they are. Actually quite proud of that :D
If they're orange, then they're theoretically fine, but:
1. You probably already know this but you need to download them through PokéGTS or something like that to avoid them having the ribbon Pokécheck gives them
2. I personally wouldn't go to a live tournament with Pokémon from Pokécheck. There's a chance they'll still be detected as hacked even if Pokécheck didn't pick any problems up.
 
RE : Teammates for Top+moth combo

Hey people! Recently i have been trying to create a team based on hitmontop + volcarona. Any advice for what pokemon will do best as their team mates? Any threats i should look out for? Thanks so much in advance for your advice!! :)
 
Hey people! Recently i have been trying to create a team based on hitmontop + volcarona. Any advice for what pokemon will do best as their team mates? Any threats i should look out for? Thanks so much in advance for your advice!! :)
The main problem with that combo is going to be people disrupting your setup. The second-biggest problem is going to be people taking out volcarona via, e.g. priority thunderwave, before it can sweep. In general, your biggest problems are going to be Water- and Rock-type opponents, which are hard to OHKO with your spread moves, and which can often KO you back if you let them live for a turn (and you can't avoid letting at least one live for a turn).

As such, you're going to want your supporting mons to deal with those types well. Some sort of sun inducer would help protect you against rain (and to a lesser extent sand); unfortunately, Ninetales sucks, but you might nonetheless want to use it. Alternatively, you could put Sunny Day on the set of one of your supporters. Having grass-type coverage in the rest of your team also seems useful; that would work quite well with sun, given how most Chlorophyll sweepers are grass-type.

A different possible way to support the team is with Fighting-types, which are good against Rock-types, not bad against Water-types, and often have Wide Guard. This is what your Hitmontop should be doing already, of course; it's up to you whether you feel you need more backups with a similar plan.

The remaining thing you probably want is a backup lead strategy. If the opponent has a faster Fake Out, their partner can quite possibly take out Volcarona before it can set up. This is unlikely to come up very often, but you might want to dedicate a team slot to an alternative strategy (not that I can think of one right now); you have six slots, so you can afford to use one of them only in niche circumstances.
 
Im planning to go to the brimingham UK vgc nats. But I'm cab out 2 hours away from it. Doe anyone have a link to times of registration or the start of the event (if there are any) so i can start planning?
 
The main problem with that combo is going to be people disrupting your setup. The second-biggest problem is going to be people taking out volcarona via, e.g. priority thunderwave, before it can sweep. In general, your biggest problems are going to be Water- and Rock-type opponents, which are hard to OHKO with your spread moves, and which can often KO you back if you let them live for a turn (and you can't avoid letting at least one live for a turn).

As such, you're going to want your supporting mons to deal with those types well. Some sort of sun inducer would help protect you against rain (and to a lesser extent sand); unfortunately, Ninetales sucks, but you might nonetheless want to use it. Alternatively, you could put Sunny Day on the set of one of your supporters. Having grass-type coverage in the rest of your team also seems useful; that would work quite well with sun, given how most Chlorophyll sweepers are grass-type.

A different possible way to support the team is with Fighting-types, which are good against Rock-types, not bad against Water-types, and often have Wide Guard. This is what your Hitmontop should be doing already, of course; it's up to you whether you feel you need more backups with a similar plan.

The remaining thing you probably want is a backup lead strategy. If the opponent has a faster Fake Out, their partner can quite possibly take out Volcarona before it can set up. This is unlikely to come up very often, but you might want to dedicate a team slot to an alternative strategy (not that I can think of one right now); you have six slots, so you can afford to use one of them only in niche circumstances.
Thanks alot for your informative advice!! It helps alot! :)
 
Im planning to go to the brimingham UK vgc nats. But I'm cab out 2 hours away from it. Doe anyone have a link to times of registration or the start of the event (if there are any) so i can start planning?
I've seen rumours of 8am being registration, but I'm not sure how much I trust them. It seems reasonable, at least, due to there being an extra 3 rounds this year compared to previous years.
 
I've been rejiggering my team around, and I've come across a bit of a problem.

I for sure want to include a fakeout user on my team, because from both experience and lurking around here, it seems that's just a smart thing to have. I was planning on using Hitmontop, since he was one of my biggest foils at the last VGC tourney I participated in and seems really very useful, but then I was thinking. At this point, everybody and everybody's dog knows that most Hitmontop are going to be using fakeout, and will probably just protect first turn. That's what I learned to do eventually. What's the best way of dealing with that, then? I probably sound dumb asking, but what's the best ways of taking advantage of a first-turn protect?

I was considering going for another lesser known fakeout user, but is it really worth the surprise factor when that pokemon probably won't be as strong as Hitmontop anyway? Even though so many people use him by now that most people would have a counter for him to start with.

I guess long story short (too late) is it better to go with the "obvious" choices, even if chances are good that people will very much know how to deal with it?
 

voodoo pimp

marco pimp
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
If you want to take advantage of turn 1 Protect, lead with something that can set up - Quiver Dance Volcarona, Tailwind whatever, etc.

As for going with the obvious choice, every player that you need to worry about should know all the Fake Out users, especially the ones that are worth using (they might not know that, say, Delibird learns it, but then you're using Delibird), so you won't gain much in surprise value. Don't ever rely on a strategy that depends on your opponent not knowing something, and the popular choices are popular for a reason.
 
I've been rejiggering my team around, and I've come across a bit of a problem.

I for sure want to include a fakeout user on my team, because from both experience and lurking around here, it seems that's just a smart thing to have. I was planning on using Hitmontop, since he was one of my biggest foils at the last VGC tourney I participated in and seems really very useful, but then I was thinking. At this point, everybody and everybody's dog knows that most Hitmontop are going to be using fakeout, and will probably just protect first turn. That's what I learned to do eventually. What's the best way of dealing with that, then? I probably sound dumb asking, but what's the best ways of taking advantage of a first-turn protect?

I was considering going for another lesser known fakeout user, but is it really worth the surprise factor when that pokemon probably won't be as strong as Hitmontop anyway? Even though so many people use him by now that most people would have a counter for him to start with.

I guess long story short (too late) is it better to go with the "obvious" choices, even if chances are good that people will very much know how to deal with it?
you should try liepard. it's been rising in popularity and can be really effective.

252 HP and Speed with Foul Play / Encore / Fake Out / TWave or Swagger etc. @Dark Gem / Sash is a good starting point
 
OMG
been away for 2 months, so much has improved!
gotta totally restart black2
so much news about x/y to catch up on,

best nature for scyther?
 

Agonist

how can I feel existential dread, it's my fear
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
You'd be much better off using a Scizor, since it has a far superior typing, and better movepool.
 
I was planning on using Hitmontop, since he was one of my biggest foils at the last VGC tourney I participated in and seems really very useful, but then I was thinking. At this point, everybody and everybody's dog knows that most Hitmontop are going to be using fakeout, and will probably just protect first turn. That's what I learned to do eventually. What's the best way of dealing with that, then? I probably sound dumb asking, but what's the best ways of taking advantage of a first-turn protect?
If you can predict the Protect, punish it with Feint.
 
OMG
been away for 2 months, so much has improved!
gotta totally restart black2
so much news about x/y to catch up on,

best nature for scyther?
If you're hell-bent on Scyther, then it depends on if outspeeding Garchomp is useful (and it probably is for Scyther). In which case, you'll need Jolly and at least 236 Spe to outspeed Jolly 252 Garchomp. If that's not so important, then bulk will probably be your next priority.
 
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