Resource Union Street - Casual Discussion Thread

[HeliosAflame]

I'm curious to ask; What do you guys think about items in general?

I'm in a bit of a pickle and want to buy items but would also like to prioritize items that would actually be super useful to me so I'd like to know more about how you view and use items. I want to know if there are any items that I could be sleeping on or are genuinely great on pokemon I own or plan on buying...

Tldr; What items do you view as generally good, or are extremely good in certain situations, and why?

If it helps, I'm looking more-so at non-competitive content (so not TLG or Circuit) so I can get better at BBP and also get a wider library of pokemon to actually use (also, groudon). It's a bit close to January patch but I'd still love to hear thoughts on commonly used items or items you've found to be very neat.

For general content:

• Enigma Berry - Very good generic defensive item if you want to survive while first ordering
• Luck and Odd incense - My favorite generic attack and defense incenses, they are very good if your stats are at the right place
• Tamato Berry - Sometimes you just need to be fast to finish someone off.
• Leftovers - Still a good item to slap down if you don't really know what you need.
• Life Orb - The power level of unconditional damage items has gone way down, but life orb is the easiest one to use when you need to hit things harder.
• Heavy Duty Boots - Good answer to rocks, good in a surprising amount of other cases. For example you can equip it if you are poisoned, or if you want to type "Steel Beam".

More specific things:

• Pomeg Berry is very good on anything with 80 hp or lower. it is an enigma berry that always goes off and cannot be knocked.
• Flame/Toxic Orb - I like trying to trick flame or toxic orb to opponents since it bricks their item slot and inflicts a condition. Any steel or poison mon with trick can use toxic orb, any fire mon can use flame.
• Shell Bell - Really high numbers on the item if your mon has metal sound or screech.
• Normal Gem - This is actually my favorite damage item at level 4, since you can 30 damage hyper beam people for a big burst.
• Kelpsy Berry - Funny on fake out mon who are not primarily physical such as gothitelle or munkidori.
• Barometer - Really good on any sandstorm storm mon and possibly other weather as well.

 

[Mamoswindle]

I'm curious to ask; What do you guys think about items in general?

I'm in a bit of a pickle and want to buy items but would also like to prioritize items that would actually be super useful to me so I'd like to know more about how you view and use items. I want to know if there are any items that I could be sleeping on or are genuinely great on pokemon I own or plan on buying...

Tldr; What items do you view as generally good, or are extremely good in certain situations, and why?

If it helps, I'm looking more-so at non-competitive content (so not TLG or Circuit) so I can get better at BBP and also get a wider library of pokemon to actually use (also, groudon). It's a bit close to January patch but I'd still love to hear thoughts on commonly used items or items you've found to be very neat.

So items I think you should just have outright and likely want to bring to most things (patch pending idk what these are gonna do in a month)

Heavy duty boots (probably the best defensive item in the game, shuts out all options that aren't just racing you)
Lum Berry (this is more combo related but having status protection is very valuable)
Enigma Berry (the most reliable burst/single round defensive item in the game)
Leftovers (the most reliable sustained defensive item in the game)
Sticky Barb (very good item disruption, synergises very well with fake out which is a tools I would consistently choose to bring)
Tamato Berry (good for a short window of speed control, especially great for second sending a slower mon)
Light Ball (so this is explicity a very short list of mons but the numbers attached to this thing are frankly insane enough to make it outright the highest impact item you can wield with that list)


More situational

Choice Items (hefty drawback for great racing potential, favours switching a lot but great for encounters you can plot out in advance)
Covert Cloak (good for cutting out half a combo list on a first order, especially useful to slower mons and great for sending second into a fake out mon trying to preserve HP)
Ability Shield (This might be an overrating but I think it's worth for a mon that procs the additional effect and Weezing has been reminding people that their mons want to keep their text a lot recently)
Quick Claw (Great for raid especially, but generally good for a slow mon and an item more likely to shine when there is a circuit that wants shorter rounds)
Focus Sash (solid defensive item for blind leads and mons that want to buy more time, watch out for pickpocket forcing you into stall)
Cleanse Tag (good for a lot of niche scenarios where an ability makes something unplayable otherwise)
Life Orb (most consistent damage item in the game tho you need to be hitting SE with it for it to be worth the trade off tbh)
Luck Incense (good defensive item, prefered by mons that have some amount of immunity to major conditions and can leverage making it asymetrical)
Full Incense (solid item for low defence, reasonable offence, high movepool mons that want stats rounding out and have a lot of SE coverage)
Rose Incense (personal favourite offensive incense, cuts out reactive options and makes a stally mon more threatening)
Odd Incense (if you are getting the full value out of this item it's probably the highest impact you can get from a dmg item)
Loaded Dice (when it's good it good but this is a pretty short list of mons to pick up for and is likely more niche than the rest)

 

[Mamoswindle]

Circuit usage of '25

For a run down of the top 10 most played mons in 2025 circuit games, if we had an OU, this is what would be there first

Honourable mentions

5 Brings, 3 Picks, 66.7% Win Rate on send out
Amazingly, maybe due to a handshake arangement from a couple of individuals, the premier menace of the discussions just missed out on top 10 due to having a worse tiebreaker than our number 10 slot

7 Brings, 0 Picks, N/A Win Rate on send out
Despite being brought more times than most of this list, Xerneas is yet to touch some grass, making it miss out on our usage stats

10th

5 Brings, 3 Picks, 100% Win Rate on send out
Groudon crashes it's way to kick off the list, having an early start to the year and dropping off a little in usage as it went on, it continued to dominate not dropping a game

9th

6 Brings, 3 Picks, 0% Win Rate on send out
A sand story for the land shark, racking up as one of the most popular picks it has some genuinely impressive performances to it's name but never managed to cross the line for it's first dub

8th

7 Brings, 3 Picks, 33.3% Win Rate on send out
The stat monster of purchaseable mons, Kingambit thrived on being a lichpin endgame mon boasting ridiculous numbers for being the last mon left on your team

7th

7 Brings, 3 Picks, 66.7% Win Rate on send out
Signature pick of yours truly and frequent of the patch notes, Sneasler got away with a lot of crime this year as a premier scam mon for attacking an opponents action economy

6th

4 Brings, 4 Picks, 75% Win Rate on send out
A late bloomer of the season but one hell of a bloomer, Golduck rose up toward the end of the season to become one of the major threats of the season

5th

5 Brings, 4 Picks, 20% Win Rate on send out
Signature pick of chief of crime FortColors, every time this thing shows up I can recall somone asking either why does it have so much HP or why is it so fast

4th

6 Brings, 4 Picks, 75% Win Rate on send out
The main benificiary of many a circuit quirk, Delibird's fanfic ability effects make it a huge source of exploits when it came to arena rules

3rd

7 Brings, 4 Picks, 75% Win Rate on send out
A huge bastion of bulk, unparralelled in a Trick Room, Stakataka solidifies itself on the podium here for being the definition of not caring about your speed tiers

2nd

10 Brings, 4 Picks, 0% Win Rate on send out
Fan favourite and forum mascot Tyranitar is the most brought pokemon of the year, and somehow makes a sadder story than Garchomp as it also fails to ever cross the finish line and collect a win

1st

7 Brings, 6 Picks, 33.3% Win Rate on send out
And your most used pokemon of the year, for being a very versatile pivot capable of providing a varienty of support to other team members and the only mon to click the broken version of Triple Combo
:thechamp:

 

[LouisCyphre]

Hey, everyone:

Please rework Unown.​

---

For those of you not in the 'nown, Unown is a strange Pokemon with a troubled patch history.

The current version of Unown has the following movepool-replacing Trait:

Details

Unown completely lacks a movepool. However, Unown may use any traditional move in the entire game... Semi-randomly.

[ Combos ]
Unown has no Combo Slots. Instead, Unown may attempt and execute combinations using any two moves they know, so long as they know the components and have the appropriate Letters for those components.

[ Letter Slots ]
Unown has 26 Letter Slots, numbered in order "A-1" to "Z-26". The number is to help with rolling dice.

At Level 0 and 1, Unown can know one move in each Letter Slot, that starts with that letter. This looks like:

A-1: Aromatherapy
B-2: Baneful Bunker
[ ...and so on ]

At Level 2 or higher, Unown can know two such moves in each slot, like so:

A-1: Anchor Shot / Attract
B-2: Boomburst / Bide
[ ...and so on ]

When claiming Unown, or when Leveling Up Unown, their trainer may fill these Letter Slots with any standard move of Unown's Level or below. Players may also re-select Unown's moves for a nominal fee in the Day Care shop, in the Prize Claim thread.

The numbers are required, so that referees may roll random Letters more easily.

[ Letters ]
Unown stocks a resource called Letters, and spends these Letters to execute moves. Unown starts each battle with the Letters "U", "N", "O", "W" and "N" stocked, and with no other stocked Letters.

Unown has a Stock Size equal to six plus their Level. (6 + Level) This is how many Letters Unown is allowed to Stock.

At the start of battle, and at the end of each round: Unown stocks random Letters, with equal odds, until their Stock Size is full. Unown can stock duplicate Letters.

Moves each cost Unown the stocked Letter that their name start with, in addition to their other costs. Combos instead cost the Letter that each component move's name starts with. Commands don't cost Unown any Letters.

Unown can't receive intent to use moves or Combos that they lack the Letters to perform. (This is important for opponents' substitutions.)

I'd like to replace it with something more sanely playable and maintainable, but I don't want to take time away from developing or updating important things, or playing my own game. That's where you could come in!

Here is what any potential replacement needs to be:

• A new movepool-replacing Trait...
• ...that involves English-alphabet letters in some way...
• ...that supplies Unown with access to enough moves to be a playable BBP Pokemon...
• ...while playing differently enough from other oddball Pokemon, such as Smeargle...
• ...without forcing opponents to look up the list of moves in the DAT every round...
• ...while being sane for players to store in the Toolsheet and for approvers to approve...
• ...with some easy numbers to tune (such as Stock Size, above) so it can be easily balanced.

Simple, right?

There's no immediate deadline for this request. I'm willing to leave it up in the air until we have an option I think is workable, that is also sufficiently popular.

 

[HeliosAflame]

For your inspection:
"At the end of the switching phase, if this pokemon was sent out this round, declare 26 moves with different first letters. You may use each of those moves once. Gain the command - 5 en, declare 26 new moves. At the end of the round, they replace your move pool."

• Well it definitely replaces the move pool
• It uses the english alphabet
• 26 feels like a playable number of moves if you get to pick them custom each send out
• It chooses on send out, not send in, making it distinct from mew and smeargle
• The opponent can see the particular list of moves unown has without having to find "every move with the letter E" in the DAT whenever they first order
• It requires no toolsheet or approval
• If it is too strong, the ability can declare less than 26 moves. If it is too weak, the restriction on using each move once could be removed.
• The intent is to reset your move pool by switching out but the command is there to stop unown getting completely stuck in odd situations.