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I agree with the mindset that the fewer holes in a team, the better, and inaccuracy is one of them. Apart from enemy powder/incense/evasion users, you have control over that aspect, so you might as well control it.
But personally in all the battles I've lost, missing being the cause of said loss is extremely rare compared to bad matchups, flinching or status or other hax, and so on. People refuse to use Play Rough under most circumstances and that amuses me, but again, I can understand why. Stone Edge is my cutoff point and I won't use moves like it and Focus Blast without Gravity in play. My experiences tend to differ because my preference for TR means all of my pokes are EVd with some semblence of bulk; in singles where speed can't just be ignored, it's more of an issue. I'll also concede that.
As an aside, coverage or not, I consider the Fang attacks to be among the lamest moves in the game. So many things not to like about them- trollish imperfect accuracy; it's a contact move, the most widely punishable type of move in the game; and to add icing to the cake, the base power is a fucking joke compared to the preferential coverage moves of those types. I would happily lose the flinch and status chance just to raise them to 80 BP or higher. Come on.
I've been fooling around with Oranguru spreads using the VGC build as a starting point to try to find something slightly more utilitarian, but from what I can tell it's actually pretty well suited for most things that can be thrown at it already. It easily survives the ate-boosted Hyper Beams from their respective users which are still the strongest special attacks used there, if I'm not mistaken (technically Adapatability P-Z Set 2 is stronger, but I don't think it appears past 40.) I was trying to find a possible spread that would allow it to tank both those beams as well as Tyrantrum4 Head Smash but unfortunately a spread that kept the safety against the beams could only get me a 21% chance of survival at best. Looks like Protect is staying on the set and the spread is staying as is... ...save for the 20 SpA, as guaranteeing a OHKO on Salazzle is not a high priority for any team featuring this guy.
I want to create my team for battle tree but I'm completely noob in pokemon competetive world. Could you help me with natures/abilities/items/movesets for Dragonite/M-Metagross/Porygon-Z team? I haven't any idea how it should look like.
Metagross@Metagrossite
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 4HP/252Atk/252Spe
Nature: Jolly
~ Iron Head
~ Bullet Punch
~ Thunder Punch
~ Earthquake
Dragonite is a better lead, but PZ is best used as a lead due to its defenses and its niche as a one-very-effective-trick pony. (You could even name it OneTrickPory, but the patent is pending on that one.) Thunder Punch on Metagross because pokes like Slowbro and Starmie give you a bit of trouble otherwise, more than Garchomp and Flygon do. EQ is somewhat necessary to beat foe Mega Metagross, who would shit on your team otherwise.
You're not really thrilled with status like sleep, but converting to an Electric-type in front of idiots like the Rotom forms will help you stave off paralysis.
Is Klefki good for Battle Tree? It has a much better defensive typing than Alolan Ninetales, and has Prankster to set up dual screens, as well as Foul Play and Play Rough.
Now that I think about it, it seems like a good idea to have a sort of Battle Tree viability ranking topic. It's probably somewhat different from online Battle Spot due to the lack of AI Tapus and Ultra Beasts.
My triples streak in ORAS has ended. I lost at 3604!
I actually lost about a month ago while I waited for bank to be updated. I will do a write up and add proof sometime. I am kind of sad I was just shy of 4k, but it was a good time while it lasted!
Anyway, I look forward to climbing the tree with you all!
My triples streak in ORAS has ended. I lost at 3604!
I actually lost about a month ago while I waited for bank to be updated. I will do a write up and add proof sometime. I am kind of sad I was just shy of 4k, but it was a good time while it lasted!
Anyway, I look forward to climbing the tree with you all!
How do you win consistently in Triples in the first place? It sounds like the kind of format where things can easily go wrong on the first turn. (e.g. surprise Protects)
Then again, I played more Rotation Battles than Triples, so what do I know? :)
I'll try my luck with a Super Doubles rain team again tomorrow now that I have a Kingdra. Now, if only I had a Ludicolo/Qwilfish/Kabutops. . .
Hi, been away a while and am back to report an ongoing streak of 160 (still with iVolke's team).
Here is my most recent battle:
V39G-WWWW-WWW5-XB3U
During this streak I have been trying not to overthink things as much as I found that when I did I usually put myself in tougher situations than necessary. While I did have some close calls and battles I wouldn't have won if it weren't for the RNG being in my favor or the AI choking for the most part the team is just as consistent as it's always been and I hope I can maintain the smoothness this streak has had so far. :)
My triples streak in ORAS has ended. I lost at 3604!
I actually lost about a month ago while I waited for bank to be updated. I will do a write up and add proof sometime. I am kind of sad I was just shy of 4k, but it was a good time while it lasted!
Anyway, I look forward to climbing the tree with you all!
Whooooooo-ee! Long time no see bro! I remember your initial cracking of 1000, and afterward you kinda fell off the map for a while just like Jump. Evidently you were busy ;)
adman2 Triples was widely considered the easiest format to work with, and I completely agree, because there were numerous easily achieved means of setting up overpowering area-wide effects which benefit the whole team. Trick Room and Tailwind were the cores behind most of those teams because moving first has always been the first step to cementing the upper hand. Greninja's Mat Block is an extremely useful move and was frequently used on the Tailwind side.
Otherwise, what made Triples easy were the same sorts of things used in other formats, primarily AI manipulation. Or rather, playing around their easily anticpated behavior; enemies liked to spam spread moves when no imminent KOs were available and would continue to do so until then, so you could simply keep Wide Guard up and waste several of their turns that way. Using level one Aron was also extremely effective due to the AI's penchant for going after killing blows whenever possible. Lastly, wiith triples allowing for six of your pokes, it wasn't difficult to stack your team in such a way that you covered as many holes as possible without sacrificing power. A number of mega evolutions were introduced which made it easy to KO all three opponents in a single turn via spread damage.
I normally ran randomly-assembled teams chock full of borderline shitmons for the fun of it, but my own attempt at a serious streak was able to break the 1,000 barrier just like the more seasoned fellows. I used the Aron strategy, myself.
Metagross@Metagrossite
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 4HP/252Atk/252Spe
Nature: Jolly
~ Iron Head
~ Bullet Punch
~ Ice Punch
~ Earthquake
Dragonite is a better lead, but PZ is best used as a lead due to its defenses and its niche as a one-very-effective-trick pony. (You could even name it OneTrickPory, but the patent is pending on that one.) Thunder Punch on Metagross because pokes like Slowbro and Starmie give you a bit of trouble otherwise, more than Garchomp and Flygon do. EQ is somewhat necessary to beat foe Mega Metagross, who would shit on your team otherwise.
You're not really thrilled with status like sleep, but converting to an Electric-type in front of idiots like the Rotom forms will help you stave off paralysis.
Thank you so much! I really appreciated your help :)
EDIT: Oh I checked that Iron Head and Ice Punch for Metagross are obtainable only by move tutors in ORAS. There is other usable moveset with this team composition without iron head and ice punch?
So far we're seeing a lot of Mega Salamence + Aegislash + Normal type on the leaderboards. Two Pokemon that more than hold their own in Ubers and resist all of each other's weaknesses save for Ghost, which is what the Normal is for (and when you consider that all your Pokemon essentially have Shadow Tag in addition to their regular ability, you can believe Shadow Tag Chansey would be beyond broken as well). With Salamence and Aegislash alone, you can set one of the two up on any physical attacker that has no means of boosting Attack (and several that do), and obviously a Pokemon like Chansey has special attackers on lock. I'm just past my pre-bank record now on my first run with Seismic Toss Chansey (obviously could have run it back with Toxic or Confide Chansey and taking better care to select the right moves, but no need to stick with an inferior team) and wanted to put the team here mostly to answer people's questions about how Chansey works.
Possible EV change: Mimikyu3 has a 1/16th chance of OHKOing MegaMence with a critical hit Play Rough, which could be avoided by moving the 12 Special Defense EVs to Defense (Mence could break the disguise and OHKO with Return). I guess that gets the Porygons a Special Attack boost, but Chansey could care less about that (and if things somehow got rough with a Ice Beam/Tri Attack freeze and a bunch of crits or something you could always switch stall Tri Attack and Shadow Ball). Right now, I deal with Mimikyu by switching to Chansey, using Evasion and Sub to stall out its Play Rough and then spamming Sub to get it to KO itself with Wood Hammer recoil. Obviously could lose to that if it gets really lucky with never missing, getting crits, etc. but it seems to be manageable for now. On the other hand, Mimikyu would definitely KO with Rocky Helmet and a crit Play Rough, so it probably is best to stay with the Chansey plan.
I was a relative latecomer to using Aegislash in the Maison but have gotten more comfortable with using Stance Change to manipulate what the opponent will use. For example, I switch Aegislash in on Tyranitar leads, and if it uses Dragon Dance on the switch I King's Shield. If Tyranitar DDs again (to get to +1 Attack) that's obviously not good, but then I do another switch back and forth between Mence and Aegislash so Aegislash can take some damage from Rock Slide, ensuring that Crunch would KO the following turn. Then I can be pretty much assured Tyranitar will Crunch into King's Shield and then DD again to get its Attack back up to at least +0, which buys a turn to Sacred Sword. That doesn't KO thanks to Chople Berry, but then Aegislash in Blade Forme is going to get Crunched again the following turn, so you can repeat the pattern.
While I like the creativity on the Silvally and Type:Null sets, Chansey has the flexiblity in many cases to decide whether it wants to cripple then opposing lead (through PP stalling) or set up and attempt to sweep on its own, and it has the special bulk (and ability) to care less than anything else does about critical hits, flinches, Special Defense drops, and status effects. RXHG-WWWW-WWW5-X92T is a good example of this versatility: normally I would have switched Chansey into Empoleon to set up, but it pissed me off by freezing it with Blizzard on the switch (and also for all the times I had to PP stall it for even longer before Seismic Toss Chansey was available), so I went on to PP stall it out of Surf and bring Salamence in to Sub stall the remaining 4 Blizzards and set up all the way. If you're constantly on the lookout for opportunities like that (and sometimes you may have to use Aegislash as a pivot to get Mence back in safely), you'll pretty much never have to worry about Chansey running out of PP.
So the team is working well, I'm at 400+ wins in a row, but it's not perfect. Different attack-boosting leads could punch pretty big holes in this team if they're getting crits or unexpectedly boost or attack when I'm expecting the opposite, and that would leave me at the mercy of the matchup of whatever 2-on-2 or 1-on-2 ensues. Hopefully this can get 1,000, 2,000, whatever, but I'm not going to act like I have enough experience in the Tree to know how it will hold up against every combination of threats out there.
Anyway, that brings me to my main point. I have a Truant team that I think is ready to go. I've been saving battles this streak against leads that I want to do some mock battles against. However, when I go to do a mock battle and select the Durant team, I get a message saying that there is a problem with one of the Pokemon and I can't do a mock battle. At first I thought it was due to some update issue where it had some issues with post-bank Pokemon or moves, but I'm able to do practice battles and upload videos with the above team. Then I thought it was maybe an issue with post-Bank Pokemon and not moves, but I was able to do a mock battle with a Charmander in Durant's place. As a final test, I actually did a battle in the middle of my streak with the Durant team to see if that video would fail to upload, but it actually was allowed to! So it seems like the only thing off limits right now is actually doing a mock battle with Durant. Has anyone else encountered problems like this?
So currently I *think* this team would be as good or better than the one I'm using in my streak, but I don't have enough confidence in it to toss aside what I have going right now and start winging it. Here's literally the only battle I've fought with it so far (D89G-WWWW-WWW5-X9KY) since I can't put it in any mock battles for whatever reason. Feel free to give it a try yourself , improve it, use it as a template for your own Durant team with a different sweeper, offer suggestions, or whatever.
Durant
Item: Choice Scarf
Ability: Truant
Jolly Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 4 Sp. Def / 236 Spe
Level 50 stats: 165/129/135/48/68/174
- Entrainment
- X-Scissor
- Substitute
- Iron Head (still not sure for this one)
X-Scissor hits possible Mega Absol as well as Espeon this generation (but then again, maybe it would be better to switch in Mimikyu and take on something different). Substitute is the best answer I can think of for Dugtrio 2, one of the leads I'd most like to mock battle. It outspeeds Scarf Manectric, with the rest of the EVs going to maximize physical defense and then 4 extra points left over for Special Defense.
Different EVs this time around. The old ones had some Defense for Glalie's Sub at +5 Defense to survive a non-crit Stone Edge from Donphan or Technician Bullet Punch from Scizor in the Maison. There's no more Donphan, and the Scizor sets hit a little harder than before, so I'm putting them into making Frost Breath more powerful now. The HP EVs maximize the number of turns Glalie can PP stall a move while fishing for the right boosts or a miss against a non-Truant opponent, and there's a little bit more Speed than before for +1 Glalie to beat a few of the things that sit just ahead of the base 130 crowd. Glalie got massively buffed this generation with the ability to see its stat changes at any given moment, and Drapion is most likely nerfed due to Choice-locked Pokemon now switching out rather than struggling and the Knock Off-resistant Megas that can overpower it if not fully boosted.
The panic button against leads that Durant can't or would rather not try to Entrain. Obviously the worst-case scenario would be the Red Card dragging another such Pokemon out, but that's what the moves are for. Even if Entrainment isn't possible, lowering the opponent's Speed and/or Special Attack can be more than enough to let Glalie set up easily.
Well my Super Doubles streak ended at 94. I was an idiot and attacked a Cofagrigus under Trick Room, which used Destiny Bond when it had around 5% health remaining. This left my Clefairy to fight a Wishiwashi all by itself. It almost won, but didn't win.
NoCheese edit: The team, Mega Blastoise / Clefairy / Talonflame / Kartana, is discussed here.
What motivates the AI to switch Pokemon? Computer-controlled trainers switch Pokemon far more rarely than a human, but they do it sometimes even outside of the Battle Tree.
I've cleaned up the Skewtr/TRE spreadsheets a bit (on my own computer), with one tab for trainers listed alphabetically, with possible Pokemon for each trainer also listed alphabetically, and given one cell each for easy visual scanning. Those holding mega stones are bolded. The second tab required less cleaning, as it just lists all possible Pokemon (and their moves, items, and IVs), again alphabetically, for easy quick reference.
I've been tempted to add Speed stats to the info for each Pokemon for extra ease of reference, and I guess I could add all possible abilities for each Pokemon too, as I know I still sometimes have to look up the possibilities for SuMo Pokemon. Is this something people would be interested in me doing and sharing?
Yes. Hidden abilities are possible. I haven't tested for this generation to be 100% sure, but should be a flat 1/3 chance of a hidden ability even for Pokemon with only one normal ability.
Yes. Hidden abilities are possible. I haven't tested for this generation to be 100% sure, but should be a flat 1/3 chance of a hidden ability even for Pokemon with only one normal ability.
Yes, I believe it is 1/3rd for each ability; Ability 1, Ability 2, and Ability 3(HA).
Pokemon with only 1 Ability have the same Ability Assigned to Ability 1 and Ability 2, leading to a 2/3 chance to get the regular ability and the same 1/3 to get HA.
Fun fact, when I used to use my Generation 1 Game Shark, I learned this because mono-type Pokemon had the same type set to Type 1 and Type 2, which resulted in only a single type. This fascinated me 20 years ago.
252 SpA Latios Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Charizard-Mega-Y: 92-110 (60.1 - 71.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
You were fine even if ZardY took out Metagross (Heat Wave is an OHKO and then some), since ZardY can't even reliably 2HKO Latios and you're in no danger to dying to crits or whatnot. However, if you were up against ZardX and it opted to Dragon Dance before using Flare Blitz, you would have lost. Metagross can't OHKO ZardX and (unless you're running Scarf Latios), Latios gets outsped and OHKOd by +1 ZardX as well.
Fortunately, that didn't happen, and you got the ribbons you wanted :)
Yeah, I'm glad of it :) I had good luck getting Zara Y, but I think I was a little unlucky in the order of Pokémon he sent out. I was hoping Zara X/Y would be first.
Is it just me, or are Ice types unusually common in the Battle Tree? I nearly lost my Doubles streak to a team of Alolan Ninetales, Mamoswine, Glaceon, and Moody Glalie. No, it wasn't the Moody that gave me problems.
(Trivia Time: Moody is called "Veleta" in Spanish, which means "weathervane".)
Is it just me, or are Ice types unusually common in the Battle Tree? I nearly lost my Doubles streak to a team of Alolan Ninetales, Mamoswine, Glaceon, and Moody Glalie. No, it wasn't the Moody that gave me problems.
I noticed that teams sometimes trend to a specific type, for example mono Ice types. I have also seen mono-Fire, Water, Dark, Steel, Flying, and Ground teams.
Is it just me, or are Ice types unusually common in the Battle Tree? I nearly lost my Doubles streak to a team of Alolan Ninetales, Mamoswine, Glaceon, and Moody Glalie. No, it wasn't the Moody that gave me problems.
(Trivia Time: Moody is called "Veleta" in Spanish, which means "weathervane".)
There's a good bunch of monotype teams from what I noticed.
(That's not the actual translation they use. There's no literal equivalent, but "veleta" is also used for people who keep changing their behaviour - as if they were weathervanes)
There's a good bunch of monotype teams from what I noticed.
(That's not the actual translation they use. There's no literal equivalent, but "veleta" is also used for people who keep changing their behaviour - as if they were weathervanes)
And I just fought another Mono-Ice team, featuring non-Snow Warning Vanilluxe, Fridge Rotom, Alolan Sandslash, and something else that I have forgotten. Now I'm imagining the AI reciting Arnold Schwarzenegger's ice puns before every battle. I ought to build a Mega Charizard Y team just to mess with the AI now.
As far as Spanish translations of types, abilities, and attacks go, they're not always literal translations of their English equivalents. Dark type is called "Siniestro", or "Sinister", and Grass type is called "Planta", for a couple of examples. (Really, why do they call it Grass type in English when Plant makes more sense?)
Is it just me, or are Ice types unusually common in the Battle Tree? I nearly lost my Doubles streak to a team of Alolan Ninetales, Mamoswine, Glaceon, and Moody Glalie. No, it wasn't the Moody that gave me problems.
(Trivia Time: Moody is called "Veleta" in Spanish, which means "weathervane".)
I don't think any one type is over- or underrepresented as a whole, but if you're used to playing competitive singles a lot of Stealth Rock weak Pokemon don't register as much of a threat to you. Moltres and Volcarona are other good examples of this. Ice types definitely have a lot of inherent volatility with Snow Cloak, freezing, and Sheer Cold, which probably make them unusually memorable. Nothing's immune to them so you can't really play the switch-stalling game unless you have Chansey or a super bulky Water type with Scald.
