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Omanyte said:
Thanks, this was really helpful.
I’ve mainly figured out that my problem wasn’t with Tyranitar specifically, it was with struggling to work out what sets pokemon were using and when was safe to set up. I couldn’t find a way to safely bring it in (and got smashed to pieces by Salamence/Snorlax/Zapdos having a fighting attack).
I’m doing much better now. I’ve run Dragon Dance successfully and I’ve now tried a Special Tyranitar to great effect too.


I completely gave up on playing GSC for this reason, so it is very much appreciated on my end!
Click to expand...
GSC Offense/HO have the firepower to break through these incredibly bulky teams that are just entirely do nothing.

Also fighting coverage on Zapdos is a bit rare.
 
Spreek said:
Mr. Mime's ability to deny roar while still threatening further passes is still a bit problematic. I'm not 100% sure it would be broken but no one is especially eager to welcome him back after past war crimes.
Click to expand...
Spreek would probably make a war crime team just to get soundproof banned again if soundproof was ever unbanned.
 
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I'm new to competitive and I'm looking for a basic stall team to try. I've played big 5 spikes a bit and some offense oriented stuff. Stall + some kind of boost sweeper seems like an easy win con to play with. Any recs?
 
0x4a 0x6f 0x6e said:
I'm new to competitive and I'm looking for a basic stall team to try. I've played big 5 spikes a bit and some offense oriented stuff. Stall + some kind of boost sweeper seems like an easy win con to play with. Any recs?
Click to expand...
you seem to want a slower paced team that allows you to control the pace of the match. you might like the v5 archetype found in samples(check here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/adv-ou-sample-teams.3687813/) or the unemployed 6 variants of teams based on this description. hclat has some YouTube videos on unemployed 6 here(
) and it really sounds like what you want
 
I don't really understand the math behind Snorlax EVs. It seems that the majority of Snorlax sets run a seemingly chaotic combination of Atk, Def, SDef and HP, without maxing any of them. For example this is the first spread from the wiki:

Careful (+SDef):
  • 144 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 132 Def
  • 136 SDef

It seems that you'd practically get the same mixed bulk as the above spread, with a spread like this:

Careful (+SDef) Max HP:
  • 252 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 92 Def
  • 68 SDef
Where you'd simply max out the HP first, and then divide the rest for SDef and Def. This tries to mirror the exact balance of mixed bulk of the one from Wiki, but doesn't use an SDef value that rounds it up from the % boost from nature. For optimal rounding and a tiny bit more overall bulk, we'd instead do:

Careful (+SDef) Max HP, optimized nature rounding:
  • 252 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 104 Def
  • 56 SDef

These max HP spreads also have the added benefit of making you bulkier against Seismic Toss. However, one could argue that you want to keep your HP low to minimize Leech Seed and Pain Split healing for your opponent, and that these are more important than Seismic Toss. But if that's the reason, why not simply keep HP at 0 like this?

Careful (+SDef) Minimum HP:
  • 0 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 192 Def
  • 220 SDef
Careful (+SDef) Minimum HP, optimized nature rounding:
  • 0 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 196 Def
  • 216 SDef
This 3rd strat of keeping HP at minimum seems most optimal to me in theory, since you minimize the Pain Split and Leech Seed effects. So is there any downside in doing Snorlax EVs with this kind of strategy:
"Never put a single point in HP, unless you have at least one of the defenses maxed first"?

Although for optimal Leftovers recovery, you'd need to put a minimum of 12 EVs to HP. With this, to achieve as similar balance of mixed bulk as possible to the Wiki spread, we'd do:

Careful (+SDef), Minimum HP, optimized nature rounding and Leftovers recovery:
  • 12 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 184 Def
  • 216 SDef
And for any other Snorlax spread, HP EVs should always be exactly 12 before either Def or SDef is maxed. Sorry for the ramble, but is my logic flawed in ways that I am not taking into account?

TLDR: Why does Snorlax typically spread defensive EVs so evenly, instead of either maxing HP or minimizing HP?
 
lord_of_the_crabs said:
I don't really understand the math behind Snorlax EVs. It seems that the majority of Snorlax sets run a seemingly chaotic combination of Atk, Def, SDef and HP, without maxing any of them. For example this is the first spread from the wiki:

Careful (+SDef):
  • 144 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 132 Def
  • 136 SDef

It seems that you'd practically get the same mixed bulk as the above spread, with a spread like this:

Careful (+SDef) Max HP:
  • 252 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 92 Def
  • 68 SDef
Where you'd simply max out the HP first, and then divide the rest for SDef and Def. This tries to mirror the exact balance of mixed bulk of the one from Wiki, but doesn't use an SDef value that rounds it up from the % boost from nature. For optimal rounding and a tiny bit more overall bulk, we'd instead do:

Careful (+SDef) Max HP, optimized nature rounding:
  • 252 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 104 Def
  • 56 SDef

These max HP spreads also have the added benefit of making you bulkier against Seismic Toss. However, one could argue that you want to keep your HP low to minimize Leech Seed and Pain Split healing for your opponent, and that these are more important than Seismic Toss. But if that's the reason, why not simply keep HP at 0 like this?

Careful (+SDef) Minimum HP:
  • 0 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 192 Def
  • 220 SDef
Careful (+SDef) Minimum HP, optimized nature rounding:
  • 0 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 196 Def
  • 216 SDef
This 3rd strat of keeping HP at minimum seems most optimal to me in theory, since you minimize the Pain Split and Leech Seed effects. So is there any downside in doing Snorlax EVs with this kind of strategy:
"Never put a single point in HP, unless you have at least one of the defenses maxed first"?

Although for optimal Leftovers recovery, you'd need to put a minimum of 12 EVs to HP. With this, to achieve as similar balance of mixed bulk as possible to the Wiki spread, we'd do:

Careful (+SDef), Minimum HP, optimized nature rounding and Leftovers recovery:
  • 12 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 184 Def
  • 216 SDef
And for any other Snorlax spread, HP EVs should always be exactly 12 before either Def or SDef is maxed. Sorry for the ramble, but is my logic flawed in ways that I am not taking into account?

TLDR: Why does Snorlax typically spread defensive EVs so evenly, instead of either maxing HP or minimizing HP?
Click to expand...
most players use 12hp evs lax sets nowadays (especially on not curse rest lax), those sets are a bit outdated.
Curse rest however likes to use a lot of hp like you stated.
 
lord_of_the_crabs said:
TLDR: Why does Snorlax typically spread defensive EVs so evenly, instead of either maxing HP or minimizing HP?
Click to expand...

How are you defining "mixed bulk" here? If you use what I would consider to be standard definitions (i.e. Special Bulk = HP * Spdef, Physical Bulk = HP * Def, and Mixed Bulk to be some average of the two whether arithmetic or geometric), the Smogon set is outperforming all of the sets you suggested. (Here I have taken the square roots to keep everything on roughly the same scale but obviously, the comparisons still hold)

1768934337381.png
 
mielke said:
most players use 12hp evs lax sets nowadays (especially on not curse rest lax), those sets are a bit outdated.
Curse rest however likes to use a lot of hp like you stated.
Click to expand...
Is there a specific reason for the 12hp mathematically? I've never been the best with understanding true optimization with EVs, and I'd like to at least understand it in this case.
 
LHF said:
Is there a specific reason for the 12hp mathematically? I've never been the best with understanding true optimization with EVs, and I'd like to at least understand it in this case.
Click to expand...
the idea is to get HP to a multiple of 16 such that leftovers restores floor(464/16) = 29 hp per turn instead of floor(461/16) = 28 hp per turn. in general you don't want to be slightly under a multiple of 16 hp on a pokemon running leftovers (particularly for sand immune ones) -- but it's ok to be slightly above a multiple of 16.
 
lord_of_the_crabs said:
I don't really understand the math behind Snorlax EVs. It seems that the majority of Snorlax sets run a seemingly chaotic combination of Atk, Def, SDef and HP, without maxing any of them. For example this is the first spread from the wiki:

Careful (+SDef):
  • 144 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 132 Def
  • 136 SDef

It seems that you'd practically get the same mixed bulk as the above spread, with a spread like this:

Careful (+SDef) Max HP:
  • 252 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 92 Def
  • 68 SDef
Where you'd simply max out the HP first, and then divide the rest for SDef and Def. This tries to mirror the exact balance of mixed bulk of the one from Wiki, but doesn't use an SDef value that rounds it up from the % boost from nature. For optimal rounding and a tiny bit more overall bulk, we'd instead do:

Careful (+SDef) Max HP, optimized nature rounding:
  • 252 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 104 Def
  • 56 SDef

These max HP spreads also have the added benefit of making you bulkier against Seismic Toss. However, one could argue that you want to keep your HP low to minimize Leech Seed and Pain Split healing for your opponent, and that these are more important than Seismic Toss. But if that's the reason, why not simply keep HP at 0 like this?

Careful (+SDef) Minimum HP:
  • 0 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 192 Def
  • 220 SDef
Careful (+SDef) Minimum HP, optimized nature rounding:
  • 0 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 196 Def
  • 216 SDef
This 3rd strat of keeping HP at minimum seems most optimal to me in theory, since you minimize the Pain Split and Leech Seed effects. So is there any downside in doing Snorlax EVs with this kind of strategy:
"Never put a single point in HP, unless you have at least one of the defenses maxed first"?

Although for optimal Leftovers recovery, you'd need to put a minimum of 12 EVs to HP. With this, to achieve as similar balance of mixed bulk as possible to the Wiki spread, we'd do:

Careful (+SDef), Minimum HP, optimized nature rounding and Leftovers recovery:
  • 12 HP
  • 96 Atk
  • 184 Def
  • 216 SDef
And for any other Snorlax spread, HP EVs should always be exactly 12 before either Def or SDef is maxed. Sorry for the ramble, but is my logic flawed in ways that I am not taking into account?

TLDR: Why does Snorlax typically spread defensive EVs so evenly, instead of either maxing HP or minimizing HP?
Click to expand...
I thought I would write something about this. https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/snorlax-evs-demystified.3776727/
 
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