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Ask a Simple Question; Get a Simple Answer & General Resources (OU Edition)
- Thread starter Matthew
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first off, your example from fighting games is a bit flawed. i'm not experienced in that genre so i can't give a comparative example, but to be blunt about it, most pokemon suck so much that they will never be able to cut it in OU. you could certainly build an OU team focusing entirely around articuno, and if you were a great teambuilder the team would work. however chances are you'd find articuno did relatively little in your battles, and it would rapidly become the weakest link. synergy is a crucial concept in pokemon team building yes, but it has to go both ways. weak mons contribute so little to a team that they become little more than a load that the rest of the team has to carry. your example would be better suited to an environment like a double battle, where two pokemon can directly support one another - that doesn't really happen in singles pokemon besides mechanics like wish or baton pass. synergy in singles teams is higher-level than that; it involves looking at a team as a whole, analyzing what beats you and what you beat, etc.
the thing to understand about lower-tiered mons is that every mon that's used in OU has a niche, somewhere. if we look at cofagrigus for example, it's just another ghost with willowisp and pain split, but what it has going for it are superb defenses (compared to other ghosts; generally a frail typing stats-wise) and haze. these things are really not all that good considering cofagrigus's many other flaws... but in OU, they're just enough to give it a place. if that niche is precisely what your team requires, fly with it! but to build a team around a mon so weak is generally flawed from the start, and it's crucial to understand that a mon falls into a lower tier because its niche in higher tiers is too small to justify wide spread usage - hence, it's harder to make use of a lower tiered mon. i'm one to talk seeing as my preferred playstyle is weatherless stall, but don't be too hipster about it - trying to build a team of inferior mons just to show the world who's boss is going to obviously end with an inferior team, lol.
as for your team building issues, you have the inevitable problem that one encounters when jumping into any competitive game, which is concept overload. as a game becomes played more and more, gameplay becomes distilled and stratified, and the things that distinguish components of the game from each other become more and more advanced. high level play is all about grasping those concepts and using them to your advantage.
that paragraph of fancy talk garbage was basically a long way of saying "team building is difficult and there's a lot of shit to account for". hence my recommendation would be to go and read the analyses for the pokemon in question. you're getting hung up on a certain factor in pokemon, in your case BST. base stats are important, yes, but certainly not the end-all - otherwise explain how kyurem, a 660 BST monster and a dragon type to boot, doesn't even get enough usage to be OU.
learning to team build is a difficult process, and everyone learns it differently. there are a million ways to run a pokemon team - there's an entire spectrum between offense and stall, and you can incorporate all sorts of other modifiers besides, such as weather or even full trick room. i learned by reading a lot, lurking a lot, and waiting a long long time (i actually only started laddering seriously within the past two weeks but i've been on smogon for four years). there is no easy way out; you'll have to experiment and learn what works for you.
finally, don't double post, you can edit your previous posts by clicking the edit button on the lower right of each post.
the thing to understand about lower-tiered mons is that every mon that's used in OU has a niche, somewhere. if we look at cofagrigus for example, it's just another ghost with willowisp and pain split, but what it has going for it are superb defenses (compared to other ghosts; generally a frail typing stats-wise) and haze. these things are really not all that good considering cofagrigus's many other flaws... but in OU, they're just enough to give it a place. if that niche is precisely what your team requires, fly with it! but to build a team around a mon so weak is generally flawed from the start, and it's crucial to understand that a mon falls into a lower tier because its niche in higher tiers is too small to justify wide spread usage - hence, it's harder to make use of a lower tiered mon. i'm one to talk seeing as my preferred playstyle is weatherless stall, but don't be too hipster about it - trying to build a team of inferior mons just to show the world who's boss is going to obviously end with an inferior team, lol.
as for your team building issues, you have the inevitable problem that one encounters when jumping into any competitive game, which is concept overload. as a game becomes played more and more, gameplay becomes distilled and stratified, and the things that distinguish components of the game from each other become more and more advanced. high level play is all about grasping those concepts and using them to your advantage.
that paragraph of fancy talk garbage was basically a long way of saying "team building is difficult and there's a lot of shit to account for". hence my recommendation would be to go and read the analyses for the pokemon in question. you're getting hung up on a certain factor in pokemon, in your case BST. base stats are important, yes, but certainly not the end-all - otherwise explain how kyurem, a 660 BST monster and a dragon type to boot, doesn't even get enough usage to be OU.
learning to team build is a difficult process, and everyone learns it differently. there are a million ways to run a pokemon team - there's an entire spectrum between offense and stall, and you can incorporate all sorts of other modifiers besides, such as weather or even full trick room. i learned by reading a lot, lurking a lot, and waiting a long long time (i actually only started laddering seriously within the past two weeks but i've been on smogon for four years). there is no easy way out; you'll have to experiment and learn what works for you.
finally, don't double post, you can edit your previous posts by clicking the edit button on the lower right of each post.
Yee was right in saying that experience is the best teacher. However if you are looking for a place to start, have a look at some of the teams on the second post here.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3464210
You'll be able to get a general idea of how to build a solid team, and while you are unlikely to build teams as effective as those in the thread straight away, give it time and practice and you may. Hope that helps :)
It is unfortunate, 5th Horsemen, but where I come from we often cite competitive pokemon on being the game with the deepest mindgames which is good, but also the game with the most memorization (type matchups, 300+ relevant pokemon in OU each with their base stats, move list, common sets, 50+ viable items, nuanced mechanics of weather and other support moves, priority, etc). Yeah, really the only way to find out what works and what doesn't is based on experience and not a definitive flowchart or set of equations, or even a famous top player saying "x is bad". Luckily, battles on simulators take like 5 minutes and teams are easy to manipulate.
thanks to everyone for all the help. I guess ill just start experimenting and learning as much as I can.
Also, @Alkinesthetase
Ive played quite a few games competitively throughout my gaming career and reached some pretty good achievements in certain games (top 32 4v4 team in halo 2 for two consecutive years during the height of H2, top 5 character specialist with two seperate characters in ssf4AEv2012, won quite a few locals and ranked top 100 at EVO 2012 in UMVC3, ranked 17th in socal in ssbm, pre mikehaze), and ive admittedly done not too hot in a few games as well.....T6 and BBCS come to mind. Regardless, competitive pokemon seems hard for me to be able to streamline due to how many different character synergy possibilities there are. in the fighting games all I really had to worry about were things like reaction times, anticipation, frame data calculations, individual character MU's and zoning strategies......in competitive pokemon, I feel like its its so open ended as to what is possible, but I also feel like its kinda restricted as to what is viable competitively......I just havent ever really needed to have a 6 character synergy game before.....the most ive done before is a 3 character synergy game ( the mvc series).....I guess just trying to give yall a better idea of whats going through my head as it might help you help me.......I guess I just need to get in there and start learning what I like.....since I play rushdown / mixup in fighting games, I have a feeling im going to lean towards a fast paced offensive style of play as opposed to status effects or stalling.
is it disadvantageous to have many similar typed pokemon on the same team ? or should I try to spread out the typings ? does it not really matter, or is it all just kinda situational ?
Also, @Alkinesthetase
Ive played quite a few games competitively throughout my gaming career and reached some pretty good achievements in certain games (top 32 4v4 team in halo 2 for two consecutive years during the height of H2, top 5 character specialist with two seperate characters in ssf4AEv2012, won quite a few locals and ranked top 100 at EVO 2012 in UMVC3, ranked 17th in socal in ssbm, pre mikehaze), and ive admittedly done not too hot in a few games as well.....T6 and BBCS come to mind. Regardless, competitive pokemon seems hard for me to be able to streamline due to how many different character synergy possibilities there are. in the fighting games all I really had to worry about were things like reaction times, anticipation, frame data calculations, individual character MU's and zoning strategies......in competitive pokemon, I feel like its its so open ended as to what is possible, but I also feel like its kinda restricted as to what is viable competitively......I just havent ever really needed to have a 6 character synergy game before.....the most ive done before is a 3 character synergy game ( the mvc series).....I guess just trying to give yall a better idea of whats going through my head as it might help you help me.......I guess I just need to get in there and start learning what I like.....since I play rushdown / mixup in fighting games, I have a feeling im going to lean towards a fast paced offensive style of play as opposed to status effects or stalling.
is it disadvantageous to have many similar typed pokemon on the same team ? or should I try to spread out the typings ? does it not really matter, or is it all just kinda situational ?
this is actually a great answer to a lot of my questions, thank you a lot for the response <3
I only found one thread on Sand Veil and had a question. Is it improper to necro that thread in the interest of not creating a new thread since one had been made?
er a necro is usually something in the area of 2-3 months of inactivity, the only open sand veil thread is here and it's hardly been inactive for THAT long, so it should be fine.... unless you have a different thread in mind? o_O
this should be a good example of why stacking weaknesses on a team is a bad idea. stall teams in particular should be extremely wary of carrying multiple pokemon that share weaknesses; this greatly limits the number of options you have to switch into a strong attack that your team is vulnerable to. offensive teams can get away with it more easily because it's not so much about taking hits as it is about dealing them in that context. there's nothing wrong with carrying multiple mons of the same typing, but be advised that if you carry too many mons that share weaknesses to a certain common attack type, you make your team excessively vulnerable to its users.
ultimately though, your question and my answer are both oversimplifications. there is no answer to your question. good teambuilding comes in a thousand forms... bad teambuilding comes in a billion forms. there are only so many questions that can actually be answered, before you'll have to get your game on to find out what the rest of the answers are. yee's post really does say it all:
consider this: if you make a team with three pure water pokemon on it, what will you do when a scarf thundurus-T comes in on your team? it threatens half your team with a powerful stab thunderbolt that will probably 2hko all your water-type members, and you probably have nothing to outspeed it because it's scarfed. even if all three of your other mons are resistant to electric, you risk overloading their roles... and the only types that resist electric are ground, grass and electric themselves, all of which are hit at least neutrally by thundurus-T's standard hidden power ice coverage.
this should be a good example of why stacking weaknesses on a team is a bad idea. stall teams in particular should be extremely wary of carrying multiple pokemon that share weaknesses; this greatly limits the number of options you have to switch into a strong attack that your team is vulnerable to. offensive teams can get away with it more easily because it's not so much about taking hits as it is about dealing them in that context. there's nothing wrong with carrying multiple mons of the same typing, but be advised that if you carry too many mons that share weaknesses to a certain common attack type, you make your team excessively vulnerable to its users.
ultimately though, your question and my answer are both oversimplifications. there is no answer to your question. good teambuilding comes in a thousand forms... bad teambuilding comes in a billion forms. there are only so many questions that can actually be answered, before you'll have to get your game on to find out what the rest of the answers are. yee's post really does say it all:
yee said:
Showdown is down and will be down for likely a few more days. Yesterday it was hit with a DDoS and when it did get back up it was hit again. Zarel is hopping that it will be back up in a day or two, but there are no guarantees.
The pokemon with the lowest speed gets their weather up in BW and DPP. I cant speak for RSE.
Hi. n00b question here, and i bet the answer is "no".
For BW2, i made a raichu off firered with mimic. I used the gen IV rage glitch to give it surf extremespeed growth and rage (Thunderbolt upon reaching black). When i went 2 transfer it, i found a hole in my plan-Surfs a frickin HM :3
I haven't transferred it yet...Mimic wasted...Or is it?
My question:
If i delete surf, can it be remembered in Black with a heartscale?
I doubt it. Urghhh....
Otherwise, I'll try and borrow someone's AR just to teach surf in Black.
For BW2, i made a raichu off firered with mimic. I used the gen IV rage glitch to give it surf extremespeed growth and rage (Thunderbolt upon reaching black). When i went 2 transfer it, i found a hole in my plan-Surfs a frickin HM :3
I haven't transferred it yet...Mimic wasted...Or is it?
My question:
If i delete surf, can it be remembered in Black with a heartscale?
I doubt it. Urghhh....
Otherwise, I'll try and borrow someone's AR just to teach surf in Black.
Nope, you won't be able to re-learn Surf. You're going to have to obtain it illegitimately.
You can only re-learn moves learned by level.
No, but your Raichu would be illegal to use on WiFi or in a competitive environment
What is the general consensus on using a Hail based team ? Is it really that bad compared to running rain / sun ?
Honestly the only reason im even considering it is because I absolutely love froslass, but I realize if I run hail I would kind of need to build a team around it, wouldnt I ?
Honestly the only reason im even considering it is because I absolutely love froslass, but I realize if I run hail I would kind of need to build a team around it, wouldnt I ?
I'm no hardcore, but yeah, the basic idea is that
your team should take advantage of hail (e.g blizzard
and snow cloak) You could use rotom-F for 100% accurate
stab blizzards and a bit of type variation. Also, walreins stall set and
the trolling lead frosslass are decent on hail teams as far
as I know. Search the strategy Pokedex for the sets.
Also, i believe hail is considered inferior due to the lack
of effect it has (Only affects snow cloak, ice body and blizzard)
It doesn't even boost ice moves. Sun and rain are however overly
dominant thanks to the previously forgettable Ninetales & Politoed.
your team should take advantage of hail (e.g blizzard
and snow cloak) You could use rotom-F for 100% accurate
stab blizzards and a bit of type variation. Also, walreins stall set and
the trolling lead frosslass are decent on hail teams as far
as I know. Search the strategy Pokedex for the sets.
Also, i believe hail is considered inferior due to the lack
of effect it has (Only affects snow cloak, ice body and blizzard)
It doesn't even boost ice moves. Sun and rain are however overly
dominant thanks to the previously forgettable Ninetales & Politoed.
thanks for the quick response =)
there are only three real reasons to use hail. they're not bad reasons, but kind of limited compared to the other 3 weathers:
1) blizzard spam with abomasnow and subroost kyurem (which is like the best set of kyurem). no other blizzard users are relevant in OU or ever will be.
2) for getting residual damage on nearly everything; sand won't hit mons like zong and skarm but hail will - useful in stall style teams
3) when you want to screw the other weathers in the metagame without having to run them
snow cloak and ice body suck so no they are not legitimate reasons
1) blizzard spam with abomasnow and subroost kyurem (which is like the best set of kyurem). no other blizzard users are relevant in OU or ever will be.
2) for getting residual damage on nearly everything; sand won't hit mons like zong and skarm but hail will - useful in stall style teams
3) when you want to screw the other weathers in the metagame without having to run them
snow cloak and ice body suck so no they are not legitimate reasons
Thank you! I found a much older thread in this forum's search function. Not that thread. Now I cannot formulate my thoughts! But thank you!
Per hit. The overall flinch chance is 1-(0.9^n), where n is the number of hits.
I searched this forum for the key word "Unburden" and my question was not already answered, so here goes:
If a Pokemon with Unburden uses Trick (in the 5th gen, because according to Google this does not work in the 4th) and gains the opponent's item but loses its own, does it get double speed?
I ask because the smogon ability page mentions Trick as a way to have an item removed from it, and states, "Regaining an item does not remove the boost." I'm asking: does regaining an item within the same turn/ via the same move remove/ negate the boost?
If a Pokemon with Unburden uses Trick (in the 5th gen, because according to Google this does not work in the 4th) and gains the opponent's item but loses its own, does it get double speed?
I ask because the smogon ability page mentions Trick as a way to have an item removed from it, and states, "Regaining an item does not remove the boost." I'm asking: does regaining an item within the same turn/ via the same move remove/ negate the boost?
For every doubt about abilities/move this is where Smogon gets its informations: http://veekun.com/
In particular: http://veekun.com/dex/abilities/unburden
In particular: http://veekun.com/dex/abilities/unburden
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