Hey guys, I'm thinking of entering the compeditive scene in the near future but I have a few queries...
Firstly, Toxic Spike and The status "badly poisoned". Ok I know that the difference is the doubling in poison damage, but when 2 layers of toxic spikes are layed, or toxic is used, does switching out reset the doubling damage to regular poison or does the build up still occur? If the build up still occurs, does it start from square one or does it start where it left off.
Toxic buildup, whether caused by toxic spikes or from a move that inflicts it directly (like Toxic or Poison Fang), resets whenever a Pokémon switches out, and goes back to doing 1/16th damage when it comes back in (although it starts building up from there until the Pokémon is switched out again, etc.).
Secondly, I would like to know if there a pokemon "banned in tiers". I heard from a friend that Wobbufet was banned from the Ubers tier... Also a list of banned attacks or attack combinations. I have looked for these in the Guides but to no success, a link would be fantastic.
No Pokémon is banned from Ubers; that's the way that Ubers is defined. (However, you can't use Arceus on Shoddy Battle, even in Ubers, because there's a bug in the way Shoddy enforces its EV restrictions, meaning that it would be very easy to cheat if it were allowed; this is a restriction of Shoddy, though, rather than a restriction of Ubers, and in wi-fi games there's no issues with using an Arceus.)
Thirdly, pokemon I use in my teams are rarely in the Statergy guide yet they seem to be logical in their purpose. They are by no means absurd or gimmicky but my reason for EVing and Movesets seem pretty logical to me. No, I haven't tested them in shoddy yet but I just need an opinion on how badly they will be ripped apart or if they might catch shoddy battlers offguard.
Most (all?) fully-evolved Pokémon have entries by now. If you're talking about using movesets or EV spreads, etc., that aren't in the guide, it's entirely possible; many teams will have sets that differ from the ones listed there on one or more Pokémon. What's listed is what Smogon's contributors believe to be the best sets for use on a wide variety of teams, but often you might want to adjust a Pokémon slightly to cover a weakness, etc.. That said, if you're using something very different from any of the sets given and not mentioned in Other Options, there's a chance you've come up with something that nobody else has thought of yet, but there's also a chance that what you're using is simply outclassed or has a major flaw; it's worth looking at the analyses anyway to see what they say about sets similar to yours. It's entirely possible for a gimmick set to catch someone offguard, but it tends to happen less often than you'd think; if I'm battling and see something I really don't expect (say, Sceptile in OU), I tend to look at the analysis to see how the Pokémon is typically used in its "native" tier, and also for unexpected features it might have (say, an unusual ability, or particular high stats, that might be the reason that the opponent was using it in the first place). (For instance, against said Sceptile, I might switch in a Skarmory, which would resist the types of most of the special attacks it would be likely to use, and has a high physical defence to resist a physical Sceptile, thus scouting its set and letting me switch to a more appropriate counter.)
Thanks for reading and answering (if possible) and I hope to see alot of people around for competitions in the near future :)
Of course. Welcome to Smogon!