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Format Discussion Scarlet/Violet Random Doubles Battle Sets
- Thread starter A Cake Wearing A Hat
- Start date
Hey y'all this is hongbin1 (https://pokemonshowdown.com/users/hongbin1) - I recently hit rank 1 on the Gen 9 Random Doubles ladder and currently sit at rank 2 with 2134 ELO. Wanted to share a list of some ideas for doubles set improvements
| Name | Summary | Reason |
| Torterra | Stone Edge/Rock Slide as an option over Protect | This Pokemon is ineffective as a shell smash sweeper when I know it only has grass/ground moves, there are three types that stonewall it (grass, bug, flying) and I always know I can just switch in a flying type every time and stop this pokemon |
| Baxcalibur | Swords Dance/Scale Shot set: add High Horsepower as an option over Protect | need an option to not get walled by Steel types and perfect Ice/Ground coverage |
| Araquanid | Replace Hydro Pump with Leech Life | I think having two STAB moves (Liquidation and Hydro Pump) is not valuable, Leech Life is better for healing + hitting grass types. The only situation I can think of is Hydro Pump beating Iron Defense + Body Press sets but you already resist Fighting so those matchups aren't even bad. |
| Volbeat | add Struggle Bug as an option | Struggle Bug to help support against special mons |
| Illumise | add Struggle Bug as an option | Struggle Bug to help support against special mons |
| Scovillain | Sunny Day | Sunny Day chlorophyll sweeper |
| Rhyperior | -Assault Vest | I'm always so much more scared of the Rock Polish + Weakness Policy set. Assault Vest disables Protect and is antisynergistic with Solid Rock. Grass and Water are usually STAB and rarely coverage so you're almost always getting one shot anyways, I am never staying in on Grass or Water types even with Assault Vest |
| Grumpig | Add Protect as an option | I always have such a consistent gameplan vs this Pokemon because it never runs Protect, in particular Knock Off is such a free click and having Protect as an option at least helps vs that |
| Moltres G | Replace Hurricane with Air Slash | I hate coinflipping Hurricane, Air Slash is more consistent. Extra power is not needed because Fiery Wrath is your primary damage click, Air Slash is to hit Fighting types. With Nasty Plot + Berserk you will often be at +2 SpA anyways so the extra power from Hurricane is not needed. |
| Kilowattrel | Replace Hurricane with Air Slash | I hate coinflipping Hurricane, Air Slash is more consistent. Extra power is not needed because Thunderbolt is your primary damage click, Air Slash is to hit Ground, Grass, and Dragon. With Competitive you will often be at +2 SpA so the extra power from Hurricane is not needed. |
| Oricorio | On Quiver Dance sets, replace Hurricane with Air Slash | I hate coinflipping Hurricane, Air Slash is more consistent. Extra power is not needed because Revelation Dance is your primary damage click, Air Slash is to hit resists, With Quiver Dance you will often be at +1 SpA so the extra power from Hurricane is not needed, Air Slash will still deal a lot of damage |
| Kricketune | Remove tera bug | this is only a sticky web mon, the 2x STAB from Tera Bug is almost never relevant. I rarely ever tera this Pokemon because it's hard to oneshot but if I were to tera it the defensive tera is so much more valuable |
| Polteageist | Tera fairy | Add Tera Fairy as an option to threaten the Ghost/Fairy coverage combo |
| Kommo-O | Remove the combo of Throat Chop + Soundproof, only have Throat Chop + Bulletproof | Throat Chop and the immunity from Soundproof are antisynergistic because if you click Throat Chop you're disabling sound moves already, better to run Bulletproof |
| Jirachi | Remove tera steel | This Pokemon doesn't do much damage, a defensive tera is so much more valuable |
| Ariados | Add Poison Jab and Knock Off as options over Protect | This Pokemon is so limited when you know its only offensive tool is Megahorn, as a Sticky Web + Rage Powder user Protect is not even that valuable, at least give the option of Poison STAB to threaten Fairy types. Knock Off also helps with utility. |
| Whimsicott | Replace Stun Spore with Energy Ball/Light Screen/Switcheroo | Paralysis is antisynergistic with Prankster Tailwind, it's also 75% accurate and unreliable |
| Gardevoir | Add Calm Mind set | The Trick + Choice Scarf set is fun but it's predictable and this pokemon would be more fun with a more offensive set |
| Golem | Add Rock Polish + Weakness Policy set | more variety than just Choice Band |
| Kyogre | Add a Calm Mind set | more variety than just Choice Scarf |
| Camerupt | Always have Stealth Rock, remove Helping Hand | With a really good Fire and Ground offensive combo this pokemon forces lots of switches early on, and with only two weaknesses + Solid Rock it's really hard to one shot so Solid Rock almost always generates consistent value, I find Helping Hand rarely useful over Stealth Rock |
| Diancie | Remove Protect, always have the following moves: Diamond Storm, Body Press, Moonblast, Trick Room | I almost never protect with this Pokemon, I almost always either use an entry point to click Trick Room, or if something threatens to OHKO I just switch it out. The Rock + Fighting coverage combo, and Diamond Storm Body Press synergy, is too good to pass up usually. |
| Dudunsparce | Add a Support Serene Grace set with Stealth Rock+ Tailwind + Glare as an option, also add Headbutt/Rock Slide | More variety |
| Koraidon | Add a set with Swords Dance/Scale Shot/Flare Blitz/Collision Course/Protect | More variety than Choice Band, this Pokemon feels limited knowing it never runs Protect and I can just Fake Out whenever I want |
| Miraidon | Add Calm Mind set as an option | More variety |
| Salamence | Add Iron Head as an option over Protect | Add Iron Head as an option to hit Fairy types. I generally don't Protect much on this Pokemon because it creates good entry points with Intimidate |
| Sneasler | Add Unburden + Swords Dance + Close Combat set | More variety |
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yooo wsg, im one of the setdevs for this format. we went through and discussed all of these individually and about half of them will be implemented in some form in this month's update. since there are so many it might be better for me to pm you on showdown if youre interested in the specific reasons behind any of our decisions. thanks a lot for contributing!
it’s now tera normal/steel, tyvm for the suggestion!
Hello, I've played a totally normal amount of ladder games throughout the holidays and made some notes about sets that probably shouldn't be a thing in my opinion. Roughly ordered from "It's really bad, please change this" to "I personally don't like it, but it's generally not the worst"
Tyranitar - Remove Tera Rock
I've both lost games as TTar and won games vs TTar because it couldn't tera out of its fighting weakness. I get that its cool to keep the SpDef boost after tera, but in situations where wou want to be a rock type you can just... not tera? There are very few situations where you don't want to be a rock/dark type but do want to be a rock type, and the extra boost on rock attacks rarely matters. This mon really needs a defensive Tera, and I think Flying, Bug or even Poison would all work on it so it doesn't only have one tera option on dd.
Magmortar - Remove Scorching Sands (force both Heat Wave and Fire Blast on choice sets)
It's pretty silly that my choiced mono fire special attacker can generate without heat wave. I think right now choiced Magmortars will always be Scorching Sands/Tbolt/Focus Blast/(one of Heat Wave or Fire Blast), which is a lot worse than having both Fire STABs instead of Scorching Sands. Scorching is 70BP non stab coverage that is mostly redundant to its other options, with the only exception being fire types, most of which you can still hit almost as hard with Focus Blast if you really need your Magmotar to be the one to deal damage to those. Locking into Scorching is almost never the play and being able to choose between your fire stabs seems a lot better.
Tentacruel - Remove Hydro Pump (and potentially Acid Spray)
Recently rolled an AV Tentacruel without either Muddy Water or Sludge Bomb, two of the most spammable moves in the format. Instead I got Acid Spray, which should not qualify as Poison STAB and if anything should only generate with Sludge Bomb and not instead of it, and Hydro Pump, which I'm just confused as to why this is even a thing in the first place. Tentacruel isn't there do deal a lot of damage, it's there to be annoying. Muddy Water is very annoying, a spread move, has higher accuracy and is a far better move than Hydro Pump on Tentacruel. You wouldn't give Hydro Pump to Vaporeon or Milotic or all those other bulky water types, why does Tentacruel have it then?
Bellibolt - Remove Volt Switch (Prevent AV from being generated)
I don't think AV Bellibolt is super common right now, but it definitely is pretty bad. Every time I'm up against one I'm relieved when it's revealed to be AV so that all the damage I do to it is permanent and it can't even be annoying with Twave. Volt Switch is its worst move anyway, so kicking it to prevent AV from existing seems good to me.
Passimian - Remove Rock Slide
Right now Passimian will always be CC + any 3 of its 4 other options without any restrictions if I'm not mistaken. Rock Slide isn't terrible per se, it does hold a niche as a spread move on a mon that can otherwise only deal single target damage, and the high flinch chance can win you games. The issue here is that all of its other moves are essential for it to function. Without Knock, you're hardwalled by any ghost type, without Gunk Shot, you're hardwalled by any fairy type, and without U-Turn you lose the ability to reposition "safely" on low hp/bug weak targets. Whenever I roll Rock Slide, I always end up in a situation where I would've really liked to have the move its missing in its place, but I don't recall ever thinking "I'd really like to have Rock Slide here" when I don't roll it.
Crabominable - Force Protect (Split Sets?)
Crabonimable has insane damage output, the challenge here of course being that it will rarely get more than one attack out with this typing and speedstat, maybe not even one sometimes. Without Protect, that issue becomes amplified even more, as it becomes a lot harder to bring yourself into a position where its partner can support it. Neither Gunk Shot nor Wide Guard are bad, but having them both on the same set instead of Protect feels pretty bad in my opinion. I could see a set split of Drain/Hammer/Protect/Wide Guard and Drain/Hammer/Protect/Gunk Shot being useful, but I'd be fine with seeing Wide Guard go aswell if a split is not desired.
Vigoroth - Force either Twave or Icy Wind, Remove After You
I don't know how feasible this one is to implement, but DoubleEdge/Knock/Encore/SlackOff feels a lot worse than any other combination Vigoroth can generate. Encore isn't bad, but without the option for it to combo with speed control it becomes quite a bit worse, and this set in particular has the risk of being a bit of a sitting duck watching the rest of its team die while its not doing anything. Unrelated, I think the situations where After You outclasses Icy Wind or Twave are far too rare for it to be on the set, you would need something like Vigoroth > enemy 1 > enemy 2 > partner as the speedorder with both opponents threatening to ko the partner for it to feel worthwhile, which really doesn't happen super often given Vigoroths speed stat isn't that great when you absolutely need to go first for your move to work.
Arceus - Force Recover on any CM Set (dragon fairy flying ghost ground ice rock)
CM 3 Attacks feels bad, its coverage options don't hit that hard even at +1 and it feels like I'm pretty often in a situation where Arceus could just heal off the damage dealt to it at +1SpDef vs a lot of teams, except it can't because it doesn't have recover. I feel like most of these can work with just 2 attacks, like yeah you lose some coverage and there will be games where the move you're missing now would've been what won you the game but I think Recover will win a lot more games on average.
Tropius - Remove Wide Guard?
I don't actually have a strong opinion about Tropius, I just think no Protect is just pretty awkward on a harvest mon and the Energy Ball > Leaf Storm Change already put it in a decent position. I'm mostly just confused because I could've sworn Tect/Hurricane/Tailwind/GrassSTAB was a fixed set until recently but I don't see any changes on Wide Guard and while I also would've suggested removing Helping Hand I'm even more confused as to when that got on the set in the first place. But yeah, don't like no tect, but wide guard is fine I guess.
Tyranitar - Remove Tera Rock
I've both lost games as TTar and won games vs TTar because it couldn't tera out of its fighting weakness. I get that its cool to keep the SpDef boost after tera, but in situations where wou want to be a rock type you can just... not tera? There are very few situations where you don't want to be a rock/dark type but do want to be a rock type, and the extra boost on rock attacks rarely matters. This mon really needs a defensive Tera, and I think Flying, Bug or even Poison would all work on it so it doesn't only have one tera option on dd.
Magmortar - Remove Scorching Sands (force both Heat Wave and Fire Blast on choice sets)
It's pretty silly that my choiced mono fire special attacker can generate without heat wave. I think right now choiced Magmortars will always be Scorching Sands/Tbolt/Focus Blast/(one of Heat Wave or Fire Blast), which is a lot worse than having both Fire STABs instead of Scorching Sands. Scorching is 70BP non stab coverage that is mostly redundant to its other options, with the only exception being fire types, most of which you can still hit almost as hard with Focus Blast if you really need your Magmotar to be the one to deal damage to those. Locking into Scorching is almost never the play and being able to choose between your fire stabs seems a lot better.
Tentacruel - Remove Hydro Pump (and potentially Acid Spray)
Recently rolled an AV Tentacruel without either Muddy Water or Sludge Bomb, two of the most spammable moves in the format. Instead I got Acid Spray, which should not qualify as Poison STAB and if anything should only generate with Sludge Bomb and not instead of it, and Hydro Pump, which I'm just confused as to why this is even a thing in the first place. Tentacruel isn't there do deal a lot of damage, it's there to be annoying. Muddy Water is very annoying, a spread move, has higher accuracy and is a far better move than Hydro Pump on Tentacruel. You wouldn't give Hydro Pump to Vaporeon or Milotic or all those other bulky water types, why does Tentacruel have it then?
Bellibolt - Remove Volt Switch (Prevent AV from being generated)
I don't think AV Bellibolt is super common right now, but it definitely is pretty bad. Every time I'm up against one I'm relieved when it's revealed to be AV so that all the damage I do to it is permanent and it can't even be annoying with Twave. Volt Switch is its worst move anyway, so kicking it to prevent AV from existing seems good to me.
Passimian - Remove Rock Slide
Right now Passimian will always be CC + any 3 of its 4 other options without any restrictions if I'm not mistaken. Rock Slide isn't terrible per se, it does hold a niche as a spread move on a mon that can otherwise only deal single target damage, and the high flinch chance can win you games. The issue here is that all of its other moves are essential for it to function. Without Knock, you're hardwalled by any ghost type, without Gunk Shot, you're hardwalled by any fairy type, and without U-Turn you lose the ability to reposition "safely" on low hp/bug weak targets. Whenever I roll Rock Slide, I always end up in a situation where I would've really liked to have the move its missing in its place, but I don't recall ever thinking "I'd really like to have Rock Slide here" when I don't roll it.
Crabominable - Force Protect (Split Sets?)
Crabonimable has insane damage output, the challenge here of course being that it will rarely get more than one attack out with this typing and speedstat, maybe not even one sometimes. Without Protect, that issue becomes amplified even more, as it becomes a lot harder to bring yourself into a position where its partner can support it. Neither Gunk Shot nor Wide Guard are bad, but having them both on the same set instead of Protect feels pretty bad in my opinion. I could see a set split of Drain/Hammer/Protect/Wide Guard and Drain/Hammer/Protect/Gunk Shot being useful, but I'd be fine with seeing Wide Guard go aswell if a split is not desired.
Vigoroth - Force either Twave or Icy Wind, Remove After You
I don't know how feasible this one is to implement, but DoubleEdge/Knock/Encore/SlackOff feels a lot worse than any other combination Vigoroth can generate. Encore isn't bad, but without the option for it to combo with speed control it becomes quite a bit worse, and this set in particular has the risk of being a bit of a sitting duck watching the rest of its team die while its not doing anything. Unrelated, I think the situations where After You outclasses Icy Wind or Twave are far too rare for it to be on the set, you would need something like Vigoroth > enemy 1 > enemy 2 > partner as the speedorder with both opponents threatening to ko the partner for it to feel worthwhile, which really doesn't happen super often given Vigoroths speed stat isn't that great when you absolutely need to go first for your move to work.
Arceus - Force Recover on any CM Set (dragon fairy flying ghost ground ice rock)
CM 3 Attacks feels bad, its coverage options don't hit that hard even at +1 and it feels like I'm pretty often in a situation where Arceus could just heal off the damage dealt to it at +1SpDef vs a lot of teams, except it can't because it doesn't have recover. I feel like most of these can work with just 2 attacks, like yeah you lose some coverage and there will be games where the move you're missing now would've been what won you the game but I think Recover will win a lot more games on average.
Tropius - Remove Wide Guard?
I don't actually have a strong opinion about Tropius, I just think no Protect is just pretty awkward on a harvest mon and the Energy Ball > Leaf Storm Change already put it in a decent position. I'm mostly just confused because I could've sworn Tect/Hurricane/Tailwind/GrassSTAB was a fixed set until recently but I don't see any changes on Wide Guard and while I also would've suggested removing Helping Hand I'm even more confused as to when that got on the set in the first place. But yeah, don't like no tect, but wide guard is fine I guess.
Agree with all of these and great suggestions except some of the less sure ones. Keep Acid Spray on Tentacruel for sure (it goes so hard lowk lowk) and keep Wide Guard on Crab and Tropius but the Crab set split’s a good idea.
Only major disagreement is keep Rock Slide on Passimian IMO. I actually think an AV Passimian might pop off even if it’s unintuitive. Maybe make Rock Slide AV exclusive? Rock Slide Passimian is great and I click it often but I agree it can suck to get locked into it in endgame, and endgame is when Rock Slide’s most useful
(Because Passimian never runs Protect, and because it’s always choice locked so once it uses an attack once you can just switch in a defensive answer, I find it’s usually pretty free to leave it on the field and chip it down with spread moves and similar. Especially if it’s lowering its defences with Close Combat. AV would make this less reliable counterplay)
Only major disagreement is keep Rock Slide on Passimian IMO. I actually think an AV Passimian might pop off even if it’s unintuitive. Maybe make Rock Slide AV exclusive? Rock Slide Passimian is great and I click it often but I agree it can suck to get locked into it in endgame, and endgame is when Rock Slide’s most useful
(Because Passimian never runs Protect, and because it’s always choice locked so once it uses an attack once you can just switch in a defensive answer, I find it’s usually pretty free to leave it on the field and chip it down with spread moves and similar. Especially if it’s lowering its defences with Close Combat. AV would make this less reliable counterplay)
Honestly, we didn't realise Acid Spray counted as a STAB move. Apparently, it's because of Iron Moth, but that's a fixed set anyway. We'll (almost certainly) add it to the no-STAB list, so Tentacruel will always get Sludge Bomb, but it'll also sometimes generate Acid Spray.