R.I.P. Leads and Scouting

I doubt that predicting whole sets will be as easy now. Movepools are more diverse right now, while almost every pokemon has a new ability to play with. Of course there will be standards, synergy and whatnot, but the option that there are many other abilities and combinations, is still much to consider.
 
I'm actually in favor of this.
It puts a lot more pressure on prediction and being on top of your game.
 
Well at first I strongly disagreed with this change but I is fairly good. Let's say there's an Infernape on the opponents team. You don't know if it's a Lead or LGS (Late Game Sweeper); for all you know it could be a Choice Band Infernape.

Non-Lead Azelf and Aerodactyl will increase in usage. This could be good or bad, you either hate it or love it. I'm neutral on this but it WILL change the metagame.
 
No, forgoing synergy in order to catch an opponent off guard and disrupt their plan is the equivalent of a gimmick set. It might work the one time you fight an opponent and they don't know what you're doing, but then you've lost your edge. Gimmicks will certainly still exist, but now they're going to be gimmick sets on unexpected pokémon instead of being unexpected gimmick pokémon.

In battle, your opponent can control what they show you and when, and they can take advantage of your lack of knowledge before they show you things. If they haven't seen your entire team, they can't know everything.
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This is every bit as applicable to held items, abilities, and movesets in Gen V.
 
Thorhammer said:
You can easily figure out their sets by taking their other Pokemon into consideration and figuring out what would have the best synergy with them.
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Just like how everybody could figure out what Salamence was running in the 4th gen based on what other Pokemon have appeared, right? If anything, this will prompt people not to use bog standard sets. Between the new moves and new abilities, there should be plenty of diversity to go around.
 
First of all, this means Weather teams are going to be able to run a more varied selection of pokemon, since they won't always want to be getting weather out immediately, depending if their opponent has a pokemon that can easily counter typical rain abusers.

This also makes Shanderaa alot easier to predict, thank god.

Switching is going to become alot more important (??!!?!) which is amazing since it already was. It's less punishable than before, and predicting switch-in's is going to involve a lot of mindgames. Anyone who's successfully scouted a team before should know what this does.
 
Gimmick sets work because of synergy, not by forgoing it. You can't possibly compare them.

They don't have to show you their held items, abilities, and movesets. If you see their Pokemon, you can figure them all out.
 
cosmicexplorer said:
Even if you know their team's pokemon, you don't know what their strategies and personality are; you don't know if they're a conservative player, making only the moves necessary to keep their team from being swept, or if they're a gutsy, confident player who constantly keeps the pressure on their opponent. Until you know their team's sets (which could still contain surprises) and their style of play, you can't try to predict their moves and expect to get much success. Although I personally dislike this change, if it has to occur, it won't change the game too much. Even in D/P, it was difficult to find hard counters for every set a sweeper could run; Lucario would often use Agility to KO the Gliscor that would otherwise put a full stop to the Swords Dance set, and Gyarados could easily use a Choice Band and Payback to OHKO the Rotom forme switching in, which would otherwise, again, put a full stop to many almost all other sets. The addition of this change, if truly the only way to play online, would not even decrease early-game conservative play to a substantial degree; although you know the team, you don't know the sets, and they could still wreck your team with an unexpected danger, i.e. Agility Lucario or CB Gyarados as mentioned above. This ability to form a possible plan against your enemy is even more negligible when considering a full stall team: although they utilize prediction, it could hardly be argued that they rely upon good prediction as much as a bulky offensive team, and most of their concern is dealing as much damage to the team as possible, through entry hazards and harmful status. If teams have the right support for their lead, as they should have in D/P, then even attempting to counter your opponent's lead won't work, as they will be able to buffer against the pokemon that threaten it. Seeing your opponent's team, although an unwelcome change, will not affect the battle as much as posters have said it will. Mostly what this change will require is people backing up their weaknesses better and having a team that can handle problems to their strategy, not just putting five random sweepers and a random lead on a team. In conclusion, although I personally don't like this change, as Kitten Bukkake has said, teams will simply need more flexibility to succeed.
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You guys have GOT to stop making huge walls of texts like this that never get read but only give headaches. It's called paragraphs, they make you look less sloppy.

On that account, I agree with that it won't affect us that much. I really like the idea of mixing it up, wondering what to lead with, imagine it as if you're truly on the battle field and you got to see what you're dealing against (kind of like in Battle Frontier, the Castle one to be more specific, you get to spend points to see their team).

Meh. Nothing we can do but two choices: accept it, or quit playin pokemans :)
 
They don't have to show you their held items, abilities, and movesets. If you see their Pokemon, you can figure them all out.
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And you've never seen two pokémon pop out and do their thing and successfully predicted the rest of their team in Gen IV?

I will give you a dollar if you can just look at the pokémon lists for even 75% of the teams once the new ladder starts up and successfully predict their entire moveset, let alone natures, EVs, selected abilities, and held items. I will guarantee that you are not the psychic that you are claiming everyone who plays the game is.
 
Clockwork Seal said:
And you've never seen two pokémon pop out and do their thing and successfully predicted the rest of their team in Gen IV?

I will give you a dollar if you can just look at the pokémon lists for even 75% of the teams once the new ladder starts up and successfully predict their entire moveset, let alone natures, EVs, selected abilities, and held items. I will guarantee that you are not the psychic that you are claiming everyone who plays the game is.
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No, I haven't. Have you?

I never said anything about predicting every single stat point. If you can get a general idea of what the Pokemon is supposed to accomplish and how it plans to do so, you know how to stop it.
 
Actually, this DOES make things interesting. It removes the previous concept of easy concealment: You can no longer merely conceal a Gyarados until the last moment: You see all the opponent's Pokemon.

However, it ONLY lets you see your opponent's Pokemon, no more, no less. It adds an interesting facet to play. You can only hit what you can see, and while you can see more now, you cannot see movesets, you cannot see items, and you cannot see abilities (though for some it's easy to guess [Espeon].) If you could see all those things I would say it lowers strategy, but it doesn't.

In the words of a famous battler, the fourth gen metagame was about planning a strategy and executing it. In the fifth gen metagame, you will also have to disguise your plan from the outset, prevent your opponent from knowing what it is until it is too late. Versatile Pokemon, like Gliscor, will supplant one-or two-trick ponies like Ononokusu. An Ononokusu sweep is easy to see coming, since it can only attack from one end of the spectrum and it can't be used defensively. A Latias sweep is harder to see, because she has two other roles: Specs wallbreaker and defensive wall. A Pokemon may even need to simultaneously be able to play two roles depending on the opponent, say, both being a possible lead and a possible defensive pivot.

Specialized teams will decrease in usage, teams that are more generalized and can play and play against multiple strategies at once will rise.
 
If you can get a general idea of what the Pokemon is supposed to accomplish and how it plans to do so, you know how to stop it.
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Kind of like how knowing what Salamence and Garchomp were going to do (Come in and sweep either with choice or setup) made them so predictable and easy to deal with in Gen IV?
 
Clockwork Seal said:
And you've never seen two pokémon pop out and do their thing and successfully predicted the rest of their team in Gen IV?

I will give you a dollar if you can just look at the pokémon lists for even 75% of the teams once the new ladder starts up and successfully predict their entire moveset, let alone natures, EVs, selected abilities, and held items. I will guarantee that you are not the psychic that you are claiming everyone who plays the game is.
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I agree, like I said on the previous page, with all of the moves, the ideas, the items, it's gonna be difficult to predict what they have just based off of their pokemon.
 
This concept it not a bad one not at all. All this does is forces you to play more in the moment and not a if he send in this then I'll send in this and If my opponent has that then I can switch to this. Honestly, it gives you a chance to know what pokemon you should isolate to get your sweeper to setup and ready to go. Everyone is acting like it shows the ev spread and all of that super person information. this gives you a chance to play mind games and bait your opponents even more effectively. Not to mention you can bait your opponent into t
Picking a pokemon they think will counter your lead and you can switch to a poke that counters that
So say you have a swampert for your normal lead but your opponent has a breloom on there team somewhere you can predit that they will use it and lead with an espeon or something so if anything it makes it more fun

And I don't believed this is confirmed because shofu did a regular wifi battle and he didn't have his pokes shown to his opponent
 
I like the idea of being able to send out your first poke at will, but I think seeing the opponents whole team before you even start totally ruins so many aspects of the game.
 
The thing that I really like about this is that players will be forced to predict from turn 1. Double Switching, a play that reap huge rewards if used correctly, can be used from the first turn. This does change the game, certainly, because the "information gathering" aspect of the early-mid game is diminished. Not gone completely. For that reason, it seems using something barely non standard would reap great rewards. To use a 4th generation example, if I'm using Tyranitar, I might be more likely to run Flamethrower or Ice Beam to catch Skarmorys / Scizors / Gliscors / Hippowdons that I know my opponent has. I dont have to make a ballsy prediction if I know whats coming in. So, it seems the more versatile a Pokemon can be the better. Take Choice Specs Lucario for another Gen 4 example. Its heavily prediction reliant, but if I see Zapdos as the only fighting resist, then I'll feel free to go with HP Rock to get that out of the way. Games will take more thinking, and team building will also be more complicated outside of the lead position. I'm looking forward to this :)
 
General Spoon said:
Here, let me borrow an analogy from a friend of mine.

Guy 1: I've baked a cake! But it's not chocolate.
Guy 2: But I want chocolate! Chocolate cake is the best!
Guy 1: Well, it looks kinda like chocolate and might taste kinda like chocolate so it should be OK.
Guy 2: Guy 1, why'd you cover your cake in dog shit?
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I dont entirely get what you're trying to say aside from that you tasted a cake, thought it was chocolate, and it was shit instead.

What I'm trying to say is some poke on have diversity and it doesn't mean the surprise factor is down n out.
 
I very much like this idea. Seeing the team I am facing will turn my educated guesses into actual predictions. With all the new abilities and potential for new viable sets it may become really be hard to guess what your opponent is planning.
 
Oh my opponent has a lucario let me save my gliscor. Oh my opponent has a breloom I probably should be careful with choiced moves. ect. This is bad.
 
Clockwork Seal said:
Kind of like how knowing what Salamence and Garchomp were going to do (Come in and sweep either with choice or setup) made them so predictable and easy to deal with in Gen IV?
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If you know beforehand that your opponent has a Garchomp or Salamence waiting to sweep, you can keep your counters or revenge killers for them alive and undamaged, making it much, much easier to deal with them when they enter the field.

Besides, not everything is Salamence or Garchomp.
 
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