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Anyone off the top of their head know where we can read about old DP UU before the big shifts? (Like back when Floatzel, Venusaur, Slowking, etc. Were BL?) Or will I need to do some digging?

Seems like much has been lost to time
 
Anyone off the top of their head know where we can read about old DP UU before the big shifts? (Like back when Floatzel, Venusaur, Slowking, etc. Were BL?) Or will I need to do some digging?

Seems like much has been lost to time
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/dp-tier-discussion-thread-bl-and-uu.29789/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/dp-tier-discussion-bl-and-uu-mark-2.40571/

I went searching so you didn't have to. I remember reading these threads when they were posted. Hope this satisfies your curiosity.
 
Why is Rotom-A legal in DPP OU when you can't use it on cart?
Rotom-A is entirely useable on cart in Platinum and HGSS, at least for battles through local connection. This also goes for Giratina-O and Shaymin-S.

DPP tiering is based on what is usable through local connection, the way the previous three generations were.
 
Why is Nidoqueen so much better than Nidoking in gen 4? Does Nidoqueen wall any specific threats that Nidoking can't wall?
 
Why is Nidoqueen so much better than Nidoking in gen 4? Does Nidoqueen wall any specific threats that Nidoking can't wall?
Nidoqueen's higher defensive stats (90/87/85 vs 81/77/75) let it deal with hard-to-check Pokemon like Breloom and Lucario. Because Sheer Force doesn't exist, Nidoking can't really leverage it's higher attacking stats to do anything meaningful. Ultimately it's those higher defensive stats that give Nidoqueen a niche.
 

Bughouse

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Is there a particular reason that what we simulate for gen 2 is GSC link battles and not Pokemon Stadium 2 event battles?

As I understand it, there are almost no differences, except Stadium 2 fixed the Present glitch and the stat rollover glitch for Pokemon like Marowak who can hold stat boosting items. We allow the moves that are only available through Stadium 2 (Baton Pass on Farfetch'd and Earthquake on Gligar), so it's certainly not that we ignore Stadium 2's existence.
 

Oglemi

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Is there a particular reason that what we simulate for gen 2 is GSC link battles and not Pokemon Stadium 2 event battles?

As I understand it, there are almost no differences, except Stadium 2 fixed the Present glitch and the stat rollover glitch for Pokemon like Marowak who can hold stat boosting items. We allow the moves that are only available through Stadium 2 (Baton Pass on Farfetch'd and Earthquake on Gligar), so it's certainly not that we ignore Stadium 2's existence.
IIRC it was because we didn't play on Stadium for RBY. The movepool thing is probably unrelated to the fact they come from Stadium itself and probably has more to do with the illegality problems that were rampant on NB and Shoddy etc. IIRC we also officially allow Amnesia on Golduck in RBY and that only comes from transferring a Psyduck with it from Stadium 1 to RBY.
 

Sevi 7

Semi-retired
Is there a particular reason that what we simulate for gen 2 is GSC link battles and not Pokemon Stadium 2 event battles?

As I understand it, there are almost no differences, except Stadium 2 fixed the Present glitch and the stat rollover glitch for Pokemon like Marowak who can hold stat boosting items. We allow the moves that are only available through Stadium 2 (Baton Pass on Farfetch'd and Earthquake on Gligar), so it's certainly not that we ignore Stadium 2's existence.
Doesn't Stadium 2 come with a mandatory team preview? That alone changes so many things in the meta.
 

Bughouse

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Doesn't Stadium 2 come with a mandatory team preview? That alone changes so many things in the meta.
Ah - yeah I'm totally forgetting how the game display when you played in stadium was the TV the pokemon games were were hooked up to via n64+transfer pack. Only one TV means both players would have to be able to see the teams, among other stuff.

Fixed mechanics aside, yeah obviously that's a bigger problem.
 
For the drag mag sample team for BW OU does anyone know why the kyurem runs so much bulk? What does it let you live?
i can't find anything crazily specific but speed investment hits jolly loom in terms of speed as a benchmark. lets u live scarf/lefties Keld sword after rocks 75% of the time, u always live chomp dclaw after rocks, u live scarf lando eq after 2 rounds of sr (avoids the 2hko).

in general, i'd say max speed is more useful in this meta with lots of ada max exca and stuff like glisc, tenta, and lefties lando that are trying to creep that by a couple of points. air mag + uturn jira is a fairly reliable way to remove exca, however, and the bulk isn't entirely useless. use whichever you prefer tbh
 

Goodbye & Thanks

Thrown in a fire?
If Focus Energy worked properly in RBY and multiplied a Pokemon's critical hit ratio by four, instead of dividing it by four, would it likely see any competitive use? I know it was fixed in Stadium but I honestly don't know if Stadium was used for competitive play at all or if you can tell anything about the use of Focus Energy from it.
 
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Mr.E

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It's basically a one-off Swords Dance that also applies to special attacks, so it's a good move if it works correctly. I think you'd see it on Jolteon and its usage might rise to accomodate, but distribution is poor and everything else that learns Focus Energy kinda sucks so it'd still be uncommon. Maybe Nidoking or Flareon becomes viable, maybe Machamp sneaks into an extra team or two per major tournament, but Vaporeon's still outclassed by Slowbro and the rest are hot garbage regardless.
 

Hipmonlee

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Primeape, Pinsir and Hitmonlee are all pretty good with it too. One of the issues though is that for anything other than Jolteon it still doesnt make your crit rate 100%.

I think Nidoking would find a lot of use since it can both use Focus Energy as well as counter Jolteon pretty well.

Jolteon I think would see a lot of use..
 

Mr.E

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I figured Hitmonlee and Primeape are too trashy regardless; Pinsir gets Swords Dance anyway.
 

Jorgen

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When Stadium was the standard RBY metagame on PO many moons ago (on the order of 1000 battles played per month), Jolteon saw 10-20% use as the main abuser of Focus Energy (http://stats.pokemon-online.eu/past-stats/). Its usage grew from 10% in January 2012 to 15-20% by June 2012. Its usage seems like it was even higher in the ranked stats (which frankly are the stats that matter - oops for not reporting those instead!). Once cart-RBY was implemented, Jolteon usage fell to 5% by January 2013 (and less than 3% in the ranked stats). Note that Jolteon usage seems to have remained high for some time in between, presumably because people were still trying to use their Stadium teams in cart-RBY.

All this is to say that a fixed Focus Energy not only should, but has yielded increased Jolteon usage. Moreover, this increased Jolteon usage was likely a stable strategy and not just "new toy syndrome", as Jolteon usage steadily crept up, rather than skyrocketing and crashing down to earth, during Stadium's tenure as PO's only form of RBY (the "crash", recall, came because PO finally implemented cart-RBY between June and July 2012).

Other focus energy users, as far as I can tell, were not used nearly as often as Jolteon. So "fix focus energy", for all intents and purposes, is probably a Jolteon-exclusive effect, metagame-wise.

Of course, that was a different era of RBY, one before correct Body Slam mechanics were discovered, when Egg was a mandatory team member, when Golem often saw more usage than Rhydon, when people actually used Slowbro, when I was still in college, and when Jolteon was much more of a novelty in cart-RBY than it is now (this SPL, it was used in roughly 13% of teams even without a functioning Focus Energy, rivaling the Stadium usage I just mentioned). So it's unclear how well these data would translate to RBY as she is played today.
 
Why is Sand Rush banned in BW while both Swift Swim and Chlorophyll are restricted instead (under what is called "Weather + Speed Ability Clause")?
 

Ununhexium

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Why is Sand Rush banned in BW while both Swift Swim and Chlorophyll are restricted instead (under what is called "Weather + Speed Ability Clause")?
People really wanted Excadrill in the tier because there weren’t many viable Rapid Spin users and it is a nice addition to the metagame otherwise. It was originally unbanned under Sand Stream + Sand Rush, but people started using Sand Rush Excadrill on rain teams as it mostly serves the same role and can counter sweep hard against Sand, so they decided it was the ability that was broken and banned it instead.

this is my personal understanding of the situation. I may have gotten something wrong about the small nuances around what was healthy and unhealthy, but it was Excadrill’s ability to fuck over sand teams that madethe ability bannable.
 
When you have something like tentacruel at 13% and it rapid spins into ferrothorn, given that iron barbs does 12.5% shouldn’t the tentacruel live at 1%? Relevant because if the tentacruel dies the hazards stay on the field, whereas if it doesn’t the hazards actually get removed. Similar question for stuff at 13% that comes in on stealth rock, I see the pkmn die on entry occasionally and at other times they hang on w 1%. If anyone’d mind explaining that’d be great; think it’s something very basic w damage rounding I’m forgetting
 
When you have something like tentacruel at 13% and it rapid spins into ferrothorn, given that iron barbs does 12.5% shouldn’t the tentacruel live at 1%? Relevant because if the tentacruel dies the hazards stay on the field, whereas if it doesn’t the hazards actually get removed. Similar question for stuff at 13% that comes in on stealth rock, I see the pkmn die on entry occasionally and at other times they hang on w 1%. If anyone’d mind explaining that’d be great; think it’s something very basic w damage rounding I’m forgetting
The percentages are rounded up as they do not display a decimal. So if your Pokemon is at 12.5% it will display 13, but if you hover your mouse over it it will display the true percentage it is at.
 
Hey I've been away from playing showdown for a while and am getting back into it. (I left shortly after Ultra Sun and moon was released) I was wondering how are the RoA tiers selected for showdown. Since I built a DPP UU team and I would love to use it
 

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