Ask a Simple Question; Get a Simple Answer & General Resources (OU Edition)

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I've been toyin with the idea of a Shell Bell on Wobbuffet. My logic is as follows: Leftovers recover 6% a turn. Upon a Counter/Magic Coat, I will recover 1/4 of the damage I took (1/8 of twice damage took). In order to be AS efficient as Leftovers, I must take 24%. I regularly take more than that. Will it work?

Assuming it works like other "drain" abilities, Shell Bell's healing should cap at 1/8 of the enemy's remaining HP, if you KO them with the attack. So it won't just be that you'll need Wobbuffet to take over 25% of its HP in damage to heal more; you'll also need the enemy's remaining HP to be over 50% of Wobbuffet's maximum. With Wobbuffet's colossal HP stat, if the enemy's taken any notable amount of damage, that will likely fall short.

So you're going to have issues even breaking even with Leftovers recovery on the turns you do hit things, let alone making up for the turns when you don't hit. Don't go for it. Shell Bell is a terrible item.
 
Use this tool to see what you can hit super effectively. I think Electric/Ice/Fighting/Ground gives the best coverage, hitting 535 Pokémon super effectively, though admittedly I didn't try every single combination.

Of course, most of those Pokémon aren't OU, and I imagine the proportions would be significantly different. I don't know of any tool that would work specifically for that, unless you want to do it all manually.
 
I just want to point out how amazing Rampardos is under Trick Room - Head Smash more or less OHKOs everything at 100% hp; and does ~75%(!!) to physically defensive Skarmory.

This guy is such fun to play in OU. The only thing is Head Smash's high miss rate.

Is there any way to solve this?
 
I just want to point out how amazing Rampardos is under Trick Room - Head Smash more or less OHKOs everything at 100% hp; and does ~75%(!!) to physically defensive Skarmory.

This guy is such fun to play in OU. The only thing is Head Smash's high miss rate.

Is there any way to solve this?

In a word?

Gravity.

Gravity will give Head Smash almost perfect accuracy. However, it requires additional support alongside Trick Room. The good news is that most Pokemon that can set up Trick Room can also set up Gravity. The bad news is that now you have to find the time to set up both, and that setting up both will limit the number of turns you have (since the boost from Trick Room is more important you'd probably want to set it up second). Also, it has the additional problem of taking up two moveslots on a Pokemon (putting them on separate Pokemon is not feasible due to the extra turn spent switching), making that Pokemon less effective outside of setting up the field effects.

Another option is to give Rampardos a Wide lens, which will improve its accuracy to 88%, which is a decent improvement. However, forgoing the extra power from Band or Life Orb or whatever you decide to give it will be very noticable.

It should be noted that neither of these options are particularly worth the trouble, and that you might well be better off just living with the 80% accuracy. Still, it is an option should you really want it, and if you feel up to it you can even use teammates that benefit from gravity (IE ground types that can now hit foes with EQ).
 
Way too complicated of a reply. Face^3, don't even attempt TR+Gravity. One or the other. Also Gravity increases Head Smash to 100% accuracy, not "almost" perfect. In fact 60% accuracy is the lowest at which you'll obtain perfect accuracy under Gravity.
 
For OU, Fire/Ice/Grass/Dark misses 10 Pokemon: Blissey, Chansey, Conkeldurr, Gyarados, Heatran, Infernape, Jolteon, Ninetales, Tentacruel, and Volcarona. But I think substituting Ground over Dark hits more useful Pokemon; it misses a bunch of Psychics (Alakazam, Deoxys-D, Espeon, Reuniclus, Meloetta, Mew) as well as Gengar, but it hits key Pokemon like Ninetales, Heatran, and Tentacruel. Overall, it misses 12 Pokemon to Fire/Ice/Grass/Dark's 10.

Taking Fighting over Ground gets Blissey and Chansey, but loses Jolteon, Infernape, and Ninetales (and Toxicroak, if you're not counting it as weak to Fire). You can swap Grass for Electric; you'll hit Gyarados but will miss Gastrodon, Rotom-W, and Mamoswine. Grass/Ice/Fighting/Ground misses 14: all of the ones listed (minus Blissey and Chansey), along with Scizor, Genesect, Skarmory, and Forretress.

It's interesting how types cluster in OU; Ice/Fire actually has better coverage in OU than Electric/Ice, despite being resisted by the entire Fire and Water types; it hits 27 Pokemon super-effectively. But I think the two-type coverage award goes to Ice/Ground, which hits 28 Pokemon super-effectively (with no overlap). Grass has more utility than Electric, because despite being heavily resisted, it hits the abundant Water- and Ground-types, and there are more of them that are weak to Grass than Electric. Of the four types listed, here's how many Pokemon each type hits that aren't hit by any of the others:

Fire: 7
Grass: 9
Ice: 9
Ground: 5

Dark gets a lower number of Pokemon missed, because it hits 7 exclusively compared to Ground's 5.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I suppose TR= LO/Band set for sweeping;
and Gravity = Scarf for revenge killing/ absolutely destroying the next switch in.

Even with scarf, however, Rampardos is easily out-sped by many threats. The good thing is none of them can switch into it - even 252hp/0 def Landorus-T takes ~60% from Head Smash after intimidate; and unless it is scarfed, will get outpsed and 2HKOed.

So. much. FUN.
 
Arcanine gets a complete physical moveset with: flare blitz\close combat\extremespeed\wild charge. You could run a CB set or a life orb one. The only Pokemon that might wall you are Gliscor and Hippo. Arcanine has an usable SpA, so you might also drop wild charge for hp ice.
 
Outrage makes you lock for 2-3 turns in a meta full of rain sweepers and steel types, it's really bad IMO.
If you want to mess with weather, you can come on the omnipresent ferrothorn/forretress and use Sunny Day, but you lose coverage or extremespeed. It is outclassed by Heatran for a defensive pivot with Flash Fire and intimidate is not so useful as it is weak to both moves of EdgeQuake. The only set I think is worth using is the offensive set:

Arcanine (M) @ Choice Band/Life Orb
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 40 HP / 252 Atk / 216 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Wild Charge
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- ExtremeSpeed/Morning Sun

216 Spd is enough to outspeed anything up to Adamant Lucario. If you don't need so much speed, you can try 104 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 148 Spd as it is faster than any non-scarfed Politoed (as well as Tyranitar and Jolly Breloom) and you can 2HKO it on the switch with Wild Charge (choice scarf variant is OHKOed with SR on the field or some prior damage.
As Arcanine takes 25% life every time it switches in and gets recoil from its STAB attack, it loves wish passing. Life Orb + Morning Sun is to be used only on Drought teams: in this case, consider using Intimidate.
 
I've been trolling simple Q simple A a lot lately, so I'll chuck another Q out.

Which is the better Pokemon between Whimsicott over Sableye?
Whimsicott is bulkier, but Sableye has no weaknesses, is immune to fighting/normal, and has recover.
 
I've been trolling simple Q simple A a lot lately, so I'll chuck another Q out.

Which is the better Pokemon between Whimsicott over Sableye?
Whimsicott is bulkier, but Sableye has no weaknesses, is immune to fighting/normal, and has recover.

The two do rather different things. Which one is better will generally depend on the team it's on.
 
I've been trolling simple Q simple A a lot lately, so I'll chuck another Q out.

Which is the better Pokemon between Whimsicott over Sableye?
Whimsicott is bulkier, but Sableye has no weaknesses, is immune to fighting/normal, and has recover.

Both got different niches Whimiscott is a SubSeed Pokemon with access to priority Encore, Tailwind and generally more a support Pokemon.
Sableye is a stall breaker that usually uses a moveset of taunt/will o wisp/recover/foul play or night shade and functions mostly self sufficient it can be a useful anti lead to prevent entry hazards while also being a spin blocker.
Overall Sableye is the better pokemon for OU use, but i honestly don't think they are that similar besides sharing the same ability and a few support moves.
 
The two do rather different things. Which one is better will generally depend on the team it's on.

Would you mind elaborating?

Sableye is a stall breaker that usually uses a moveset of taunt/will o wisp/recover/foul play or night shade and functions mostly self sufficient it can be a useful anti lead to prevent entry hazards while also being a spin blocker.

If I understand correctly, Sableye would be more suited to a stall team that has problems with other walls/utility Pokemon?
Whereas Whimsicott is more of a "I come in and set-up on the switch" kind?
 
Nope, Sableye is for balanced teams that struggle to find an answer to the 6-walls-stall teams that run nowadays.
Whimsicott is for general annoyance. It has encore to cripple any setup sweeper not named Lucario/Dragonite and starts wearying down offensive teams that lack recovery.
 
Whimsicott can force a lot of switches with Substitute / Encore, making it pretty annoying. However, there is really only one viable Whimsicott set, making it very predictable and easy to play around. I've used it on offensive teams before as Encore gives free turns of set up to your sweepers, and Tailwind is amazing for slower sweepers such as Haxorus.

Sableye is probably the better of the two imo, between priority Taunt, Will-O-Wisp and Recover you can outstall a lot of things, as well as being able to cripple the physical Pokemon that like to target Sableye's weaker physical defense. It's a good mon to have on a Stall team to beat opposing Taunt users such as Jellicent and Mew, while also being a good spinblocker.
 
hello smogon, I've been absent for two weeks, busy with football two-a-days, and i was wondering if anyone could just give me a summary of the metagame's development, since the metagame has been so turbulent recently and how much the metagame can change over two weeks during said turbulence. Please include things such as released DW abilities, popularity trends and the such. Thanks.
 
The biggest change in the past two weeks has been the release of Genesect, followed by the release of Shadow Tag Gothitelle. Genesect has obviously had a larger impact on the meta but Gothitelle shouldn't be ignored either.

As for the impact these have had on the metagame, well not a whole lot over a week ago just yet, though now Genesect is common place and makes volt-turn more annoying than ever. Gothitelle doesn't help much with that either, since it loves getting in for free with volt-witch or U-turn. While I haven't played much myself in the past couple weeks, I'd say that you should look out for Volt-turn to be making a come back.
 
Is the species clause enforced simply for variety or for balance reasons? Would having multiples of the same Pokemon really give you that much of an advantage? I mean after all, it magnifies your weaknesses as well as your strengths.

So yeah, is the species an issue of balance or of variety?
 
Is the species clause enforced simply for variety or for balance reasons? Would having multiples of the same Pokemon really give you that much of an advantage? I mean after all, it magnifies your weaknesses as well as your strengths.

So yeah, is the species an issue of balance or of variety?

A little bit of both. Some Pokemon would be kind of overpowered with multiple of them, but mostly I think it's just because it's a traditional rule that's been around since the dawn of competitive Pokemon. It also prevents people from loading up on multiple formes of the same Pokemon, such as making Volt-Switch teams with multiple Rotom-A formes or running both Tornadus-T and Tornadus-I on the same team.

Interestingly even in metagames such as Streetmons where species clause is not enforced very few people chose to run multiple of the same Pokemon. Food for thought, but don't expect species clause to go any time soon.
 
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