Ask a Simple Question, Get a Simple Answer MK IV: Read the FAQ in the Opening Post

[Lady Alex]

Poison is quite good defensively on the pokemon who get it. It allows tentacruel to be an excellent check to scizor and lucario and gives an extremely useful fighting resist. It's especially useful on pokemon like venusaur and roserade, who resist fighting but aren't weak to ground because of their grass typing.

Gengar does benefit from it situationally. The ability to resist breloom's seed bomb is pretty good, but other than that, it doesn't matter much. Sludge bomb isn't very useful on gengar simply because of its poor coverage. Gengar already hits hard with focus blast and STAB shadowball, which have perfect coverage, and if you decide to forgo using a sub/split or sub/disable set, you're probably better off with something else still.

 

[The QWAZ]

I need a good sun spinner Im currently using Spd forretress and its okay but a more powerful spiner would be nice any suggestions

 

[Stratos]

Donphan or Forry are really the only two sun spinners, i guess hitmontop if you really don't like those two but hitmontop is basically a donphan2.0

 

[zero2exe]

Donphan or Forry are really the only two sun spinners, i guess hitmontop if you really don't like those two but hitmontop is basically a donphan2.0

Hitmontop has the advantage of having two useful abilities to choose from and priority attacks like Sucker Punch - Fake out - Mach punch - Bullet Punch (the later 3 being boosted by technician) while donphan's sturdy breaks upon switching on entry hazards (unless it takes the leadspot), however he can also lay down rocks of its own while nailing dragons much harder with ice shard. It really depends on what the team need most.

 

[SiriusWing]

Hello, I have a question about the affects of Healing Wish on an Ursaring holding Toxic Orb. the idea is to use my Lopunny to support my Ursaring by means of Substitute and Baton Passing - potentially through Agility or using Substitute repeatedly to activate a Salac Berry before doing so. Then, Ursaring can come in to do some damage, but before the poison takes it out, I was wondering if I choose to call it back, and later on send Lopunny to use Healing Wish to bolster another round of sweeping, will it nullify the Toxic Orb on my Ursaring?

Note: I'm not sure which of the two methods of support is better: the berry or Agility. I could use a similar berry to raise Ursaring's attack (or my Rhyperior's) even more alongside Agility (which could benefit my Octilery as well as the previously mentioned Pokemon), but I don't want to have a Lopunny without anything to defend itself with. A moveset of Agility/Baton Pass/Substitute/Healing Wish, it's just no good if someone uses Taunt, so if any advice can be given here as well that would be much appreciated. Thank you!!! : )

 

[Pocket]

Quick Question: If a Heatran unleashes a SolarBeam thanks to Power Herb, would the item be consumed if Politoed uses Protect?

 

[Lady Alex]

I believe so, since if Heatran didn't have power herb, it would still charge solarbeam. When it has power herb, it will still attempt to attack on the same turn, but fail because of protect. Don't quote me on it though.

 

[DDRMaster]

Hello, I have a question about the affects of Healing Wish on an Ursaring holding Toxic Orb. the idea is to use my Lopunny to support my Ursaring by means of Substitute and Baton Passing - potentially through Agility or using Substitute repeatedly to activate a Salac Berry before doing so. Then, Ursaring can come in to do some damage, but before the poison takes it out, I was wondering if I choose to call it back, and later on send Lopunny to use Healing Wish to bolster another round of sweeping, will it nullify the Toxic Orb on my Ursaring?

Note: I'm not sure which of the two methods of support is better: the berry or Agility. I could use a similar berry to raise Ursaring's attack (or my Rhyperior's) even more alongside Agility (which could benefit my Octilery as well as the previously mentioned Pokemon), but I don't want to have a Lopunny without anything to defend itself with. A moveset of Agility/Baton Pass/Substitute/Healing Wish, it's just no good if someone uses Taunt, so if any advice can be given here as well that would be much appreciated. Thank you!!! : )

I think Healing Wish would cure Ursaring's Poison but it would be put back immediately at the end of the turn. In you scenario, you'd have to pass Agility to Ursaring as Salac Berry is currently unreleased in Gen 5.

While that strategy may work in NU (I've never played NU so I can't really say), it won't work very well in OU. Lopunny isn't the best Baton Passer and Ursaring will still get outsped or walled after it gets the boosts.

The best Baton Passer to use in OU is Gorebyss due to being able to Baton Pass Shell Smash, making any decently fast mixed sweeper into a powerhouse. Mew and Gliscor can also be used to pass Swords Dance and Rock Polish if you don't think you'll need to boost SpAtk. Ninjask is also a fairly good passer, as it has both Speed Boost and Swords Dance. All of these Pokemon benefit from Reflect and Light Screen support, so you should use a Pokemon like Deoxys-D to set them up. Good targets for the boosts include Lucario, Dragonite, Metagross, and Espeon (mainly because it's immune to Roar and Whirlwind).

Edit: Also, if you want to use Healing Wish/Lunar Dance, you should use something like Latias or Creselia as they can set up dual screens before suiciding to heal your sweeper.

 

[SiriusWing]

How about a Liechi or Petaya Berry, are those available? I'm building this team for UU purposes, so I'm hooping the strategy holds up there. The full team consists of: Drapion, Lopunny, Octilery, Ursaring, Blastoise, and Rhyperior. I really like the individual Pokemon that make up this team, so I want to utilize them as best possible as opposed to running those at the top of the tier (crazy I know xD). This idea with Lopunny is just one of those ways I was thinking about making it all work - as well as using repeated Substitutes to prolong the affects of Toxic Spikes set up by Drapion.

 

[zero2exe]

Has any of the pinch berries been released yet?

 

[R_N]

Has any of the pinch berries been released yet?

Only Lansat (105 wins on the battle subway) & Starf (get 203 wins on the battle subway), so far as I know.

 

[tenzen]

I'm not entirely sure if this is the right place to post this, but I haven't found it anywhere on the forum or on Google, so here we go. There are two parts to my question.

I want Kyurem with the Glaciate set
(~ Glaciate
~ Draco Meteor
~ Ice Beam
~ Focus Blast / Hidden Power Fire)
in-game, and I wanted to know if there was an easy way to tailor his IVs to make Hidden Power a fire-type move--or do I literally have to restart until I get very, very lucky?

Second part--is Kyurem legal in VGCs, and if he is, what IV spread would be illegal on him? If I can't use his Glaciate set in a tournament, there's no point to having him in-game in the first place for me, when I could just use the sim. :/

I'm very new to the metagame (and this site,) so I only recently found out certain IV spreads were even illegal in the first place. Anyway, thanks for looking.

 

[Lady Alex]

You can't change a pokemon's IVs, so there's no way for you to get hp fire if it doesn't already have it. Kyurem is not allowed in VGC, btw.

 

[Axa]

More of a curiousity than anything: what stops Victreebel from being used as much as Venusaur on sun teams? While Vensauar has more bulk and a little better speed, Victreebel has a better Grass STAB (Leaf Blade and Giga Drain), access to Leaf Storm, Weather Ball, Sucker Punch, Power Whip, and/or Stun Spore. Is the loss of EQ that significant?

 

[Captain Dragan]

Is the loss of EQ that significant?

Well, I don't use sun teams at all, but we all know that EQ is one of the key moves of the metagame, in most tiers. So yes, the lack of earthquake when you can have earthquake (it also depends from the other team members of course) means that people tend to choose the pokemon who has access to earthquake (venusaur), instead of the one lacking the move (the bell).

 

[haunter]

I think that the better bulk is the main reason. For example Victrebeel risks being ohko'd by Siczor's bullet punch after SR, Venusaur will always survive it. The difference in Spe is also quite important as Victrebeel is outsped by scarfers with base 100 Spe (Salamence, Jirachi) even in the sun.

 

[Nintendan]

Possibly the most annoying question ever, but how can I find my SID on B/W?

 

[Lady Alex]

I think that the better bulk is the main reason. For example Victrebeel risks being ohko'd by Siczor's bullet punch after SR, Venusaur will always survive it. The difference in Spe is also quite important as Victrebeel is outsped by scarfers with base 100 Spe (Salamence, Jirachi) even in the sun.

If it runs timid/jolly, it can outspeed base 100 scarfers.

 

[haunter]

If it runs timid/jolly, it can outspeed base 100 scarfers.

Obviously. But running timid means that you cant abuse it's higher than Venusaur's offensive stats and this, once again, makes Victrebeel an inferior choice to said Venusaur.

 

[Jibaku]

Second part--is Kyurem legal in VGCs, and if he is, what IV spread would be illegal on him? If I can't use his Glaciate set in a tournament, there's no point to having him in-game in the first place for me, when I could just use the sim. :/

Unfortunately, no. Kyurem is not legal in the VGC...currently anwyays.

 

[Arcticblast]

Does Clear Smog's secondary effect (removing the opponent's stat changes) work when the target has a Substitute up?

EDIT: And is Soak blocked by Substitute?

 

[DDWest]

What is a good ground type that has decent mixed attacking stats, with access to thunder?

 

[Stratos]

Nidoking, Nidoqueen, or Stunfisk are your options. or rhyperior, but you wanted good Spattack stats

 

[prem]

Does Clear Smog's secondary effect (removing the opponent's stat changes) work when the target has a Substitute up?

EDIT: And is Soak blocked by Substitute?

soak is for sure blocked by substitute. while clear smog's secondary effect is blocked by substitute on po. not sure if its correct though

 

[Toon Abw]

let's say for the sake of the argument that i'm playing an Ubers match and my ds clock is set to an a.m time (i.e. 10 a.m.) even though in real time is night

now, if i try to use Shaymin-S and my opponent's ds clock is set to a p.m. time, will Shaymin-S revert back to its normal form?