Smogon Forums

Honestly I barely ever play on 3DS since I'm so slow to pick a team. Getting there tho-at the very least I'll be ready for Kanto Classic. How are you doing on the ladder in game?

You never told me, why Huntail not Gorebyss? Gorebyss is entirely better if you're going fully special.

Huntail has Sucker Punch, which I find very good against priority attacks due to low speed investment, and after Shell Smash without baton passing Huntail is very strong by itself, outspeeding even priority attackers with Sucker Punch!
Also Scald is special, so there is a choice for either kind of bulk, and Shell Smash helps both! Almost everyone knows how good the burn from Scald is, so Huntail has two very good attack moves in my opinion, when going with that moveset. :) I like White Herb because otherwise he cannot stay alive at all and Heracross would get hurt a lot more upon switch-in.

My ranked is going pretty badly. :( If I don't count the disconnects from my mobile hotspot (which itself is pretty reliable, so I'm frustrated), my rating just keeps slowly dropping and is between 1400 and 1500 with 50% to sub-50% winrate (disconnects help that ;( ).

I don't know if it's right that I often lose for one little sort-of-mistake even like choosing Leaf Storm on Serperior instead of Reflect, even though opponent switched (but into a faster mon).

The hardest pokemon to deal with has been bulky Talonflame, which I've truly met only once, but cannot figure which one my pokemon could beat it and it's definitely not Gyarados.

By the way, are 4 player 2vs2 matches a thing? I'd love to try buddying up with you maybe! :o

You mean Multiplayer? Sure it's doubles Ofc, but I can do that okish. Do you play doubles too?

That's a shame about your rating. Is that mainly with your Metagross and Manectric team or the one with Mega Hera? The one with Mega Hera is even weaker to Talonflame.

Do you mean bulky Talon as in the Rocky Helmet set on the strat Dex or a specially defensive one? Either way largely the same answers. Thundurus and Rotoms H and W are great vs any Talonflame that doesn't have Toxic(and maybe Flare Blitz in Thundy's case.)

Your team doesn't seem like it should be that bothered by Talonflame, tho I see how it could be. You could switch a lot of the sets and stuff to deal with it better. Gyara can be more offensive with Stone Edge for example.

DD a would be better tho. The 4x SE hit on Talon isn't necessary when Waterfall is STAB and 2x SE(plus 100 accuracy and a flinch chance.)

Yeah I really like how Gyara's moveset works for it and the typing as well as the bulk are quite good a lot of times. Not really a wall but can overthrow a lot of my "concerns".

I only have bred the Meta Manectric team since that one was finished and I really like it.
I refuse to take Rotoms or the weather dudes on my team due to their popularity. I'm sure there are enough reasons why that's not a bad thing...

After writing that comment I realized M-Manec is possibly stronger than my Gyara vs Talonflame because Electric resists Flying + there's Intimidate, and other attacks will be slower vs M-Manec, but Thunderbolt will shred that bird. I love the agility of M-Manec, I feel like there's great potential in megas that can do strong damage or effect and swiftly choose which teammate will take on the opponent instead!

I decided to start competitive with Singles and get good at that, then possibly switch to almost only doubles as that seems to have more strategies available...

Is there ranked 4 people doubles?
I'd like to see what team you would finally commit to and go ladder climbing on 3DS :)

I don't like the Rotoms or Landorus either. Thundurus is fun with Prankster T-Wave and Swagger. Tornados is very rare in BSS, and doesn't really deal with Talon anyways.

I'm not really familiar with all of it, but I don't recall any ranked format where 4 people battle. I've done a few multi battles with people just on the PSS(many of them used really weird moves like they were trying to lose or something,) but that's obviously not ranked.

Still not really set on my team. My current BSS one has reached a fairly high rating on PS, but I still think it isn't very good. Probably will use that in game.

Are you gonna participate in the Kanto Classic online competition? I've made a team that's done quite good. Still think I could change some stuff, but I'm not sure if I should.

I don't think I want to limit myself to the Kanto pokemon when I have just started learning all of them...
What's your rating on PS with that team? Do you have a thread for that team too?
Why do you think it's not good enough? Maybe there are some tweaks that you're not sure about which you can actually freely do in-game as well when you need.

My rating is 1392(used to be a little higher.) I do have an RMT for it. Even though it does fairly good I just feel like there are too many weird things that don't work, tho I'm probably just imagining.

I'm thinking of dropping Talonflame or else changing its set since I rarely ever have occasion to bring it.

Ah, well on BSS you start on 1500,, which is why I am holding just below it. Maybe you could climb up right away there. Please link to your RMT. :)

Battle Spot Naming Stuff is Hard

I imagine CPing it is how you link. RMT's aren't hard to find tho, just go ORAS other meta games and click on the format of the RMT you're looking for, so Battle Spot. Each RMT has the name of the meta it's for next to the title, that's what you click on.

Right, difference between PS and in game ratings. Idk the reason for that. So yea, my rating is relatively good, but it just seems like most of that is from luck or something.

I didn't realize Kanto Classic was actually a real competition, not just something Smogon only like the OU and other tiers..! Oh gosh! :<

I've decided I definitely will be participating, as long as I can get a place among those 50k that the limit sets. Do you think it will be a tight catch for people to register with that number of places, or is that plenty for the players normally?

This would be my very first competition then. And I definitely will bring my Bulky Gyarados unless there are enough reasons not to. I won't breed a flawless team for this though, I am I'll prepared and just want to get a taste of what to expect in future competitions. And have some Kanto fun!

I've seen your posts on the Kanto Classic thread. So you are going to participate?

For my team I think I want to pick some unorthodox pokes to counter the top threats as greatly as possible while having some win condition, if all of that is possible without having any (or at least the very top) of those top tier pokes.

I really liked the idea of Edgequake Sucker Punch Golem, might be good for my team.

I think I will try fitting some strategy against evasion teams and Clefable.

My first comp too. Idk about the number of people who'll sign up, but you'll be fine if you sign up early-just be sure you'll be able to participate if you do so lol.

Slightly weird stuff is good, just don't go overboard with stuff like Pidgeot.

There'll be a GA with some stuff for the comp eventually if you don't want to breed, especially amnoying RNG stuff.

I can give you more ideas for Pokes if you want.

What is GA? Giveaway?

I threw together some pokes with Gyara and Golem on PS! and got surprised by stuff like Gengar knowing Thunderbolt... So I thought maybe I should have a team of pokemon that aren't exactly popular in this tournament, but on top of that have them with one or maybe even at least two unexpected moves. It's a big trap when someone thinks they can go neutral against a pokemon but get smacked down with SE attacks you wouldn't see coming... Or odd status moves for that matter as well!

Maybe I can Encore Alakazam with some poke? Or what would be a good idea to go against Alakazam... :/

In those random pokemon I chose to try I threw in a Hitmonlee with HJK, Fake Out and Mach Punch. Added a Poison Jab to deal with Fairies, or at least Clefable I thought. He can actually tick quite a bit of damage with max Atk and those two priority moves before he gets hit.

While looking at priority moves I noticed Powder which is a signature move for Vivillon. Gave me an idea to pair it with a weak to fire pokemon in doubles to lure fire moves and reactively protect the teammate with Powder and passively with Friend Guard ability. Might add more to that.

Yea, it's giveaway.

Interesting ideas for Kanto Classic. Snorlax pretty much destroys Zam all the time, and is great besides, so you could use that. E Pokemon is pretty mainstream, but you could use weird moves.

Fake Out is mostly useless in any singles format, exception is Technician Pokes with STAB.

Vivillon in doubles seems good, tho I'm not good enough at doubles to be sure.

I asked the doubles authority(ProjectTitan313,) and he says no. It's compltely outclassed by Clefairy which gets Eviolite so it has more bulk, and a better defensive typing.

There are a giant number of strategies in doubles, many of which are bad or outclassed, so don't be discouraged.

Ah! But Clefairy doesn't get Powder to punish Fire moves and there are other moves probably that could do well when paired with a poke that invites Fire attacks. I enjoy building stupid teams and then I don't like getting the disappointment. :D

I tried a Kanto team where the goal was to set double Toxic Spikes with one of the two setters on the team, complement with Stealth Rock if given time (to punish Rock/Flying/Ice coming in for no good reason :D ) and the other pokes would have Fake Out, Protect and a priority attack.
So when an opponent comes in, they get badly poisoned. My poke uses Fake Out, free turn of poison and damage. Then Protect, free turn of Poison. Then Priority hit + poison damage. Or even better, instead of priority a normal attack, survive one hit and do one more turn of poison damage, then Protect again for more poison damage, followed by priority attack before going down or taking the opponent! I wonder how is Kangashkan bad in this competition!

That team kind of failed. :( I wish it worked!
I even thought Mr. Mime (with Fake Out, Protect) could deal with Alakazam and other special pokes and throw a Healing Wish!

Now I'm just trying Vapo and Ninetales that are defensive with Toxic or WoW, then Venusaur Chlorophyll comes in and sweeps!
Also in that team Tailwind Spore Sub Dream Eater Compound Eyes Butterfree to control and allow Machamp to come in and wreck anything with various coverage and No Guard.

Toxic Spikes aren't very good in Kanto Classic because there are a lot of grounded poison types. Plus Clef can have Magic Guard, Snorlax can have Immunity(and all those that don't have Rest,) Zam doesn't take poison damage, and Gengar and Zapdos float above the Spikes. That's most of the top Pokemon here.

Kangaskh isn't really bad, just outclassed by Snorlax.

Speaking of Healing Wish, I use it on Chansey. It's a really nice move, and works well on Chansey cause she's so often dead weight after setting up ST and Toxicking something.

You sure like your weird teams. I've pretty much never seen Butterfree cause people seem to prefer Venomoth, but Compoundeyes is a big advantage-making Sleep Powder hit pretty much all the time.

Venusaur is really good, I know from experience.

I found the toxic spikes fail the hard way, like you described! :D

Butterfree, however, has been extremely strong with those moves, but would you say any pokemon that can abuse Sleep is very powerful unless the opponent goes first and KO's first?

In Butterfree's case I guess you only need to let it survive and put to sleep once and it's almost a win condition, because with Tailwind he will outspeed anything when they wake up and Substitute will eat any one hit before sleep and protect from statuses! Dream eater not only hits like a truck but heals up the Sub damage and whatever hit Butterfree managed to take just if any!

If played right keeping Tailwind, chances are you will have a t least one turn of Tailwind left when Butterfree actually goes down, allowing, for example, Ditto to come in and KO Gengar or Alakazam, or any pokemon that carries moves that are SE against their own type, very easily!
I also thought Machamp could be like an atomic bomb with his massive attack and powerful moves if given Tailwind, guaranteeing a OHKO on whatever doesn't resist his coverage (though the coverage isn't the best, but neutral Dynamic Punch going first is insane in itself).