Ask a simple question, get a simple answer - VGC edition

[soul_survivor]

Random question: Which of the 5 weather inducers is the best one in your opinion?

This is probably gonna sound odd but imo Abamasnow is THE best weather inducer, especially choice scarf variants. Keep it in the back, vs weather for easy control except like vs sun, but your asking to lose if you run sun(imo). It stops pretty much all the dragons, and genies, and terrakion.

I mean rain is good(THE best weather, no contest there), but everyone sucks using it. who leads politoed+kingdra or some stupid crap like that. The only good player I battled using drizzle was zog.


Trickroom used to be good til i wised up and realize how easy it was to stop. Bulky goodstuff imo is also the best playstyle, and trickroom Usually gets beat by turn 1fake out+attack. Then turn 2 ko. I mean have players every heard of protect?

EDIT: and blizzard spam sucks. Any good hail user only has abama as the user of blizzard. Its more like a counter pokemon, like the reason people tech in a random gastro.

 

[Shiny Regice]

Hey guys what would be better? A Rhperior with 252 HP and 252 Attack or one with 252 Sp Def and 252 Attack? I feel his HP is already pretty solid but his Sp Def stat is horribly lacking meaning an easy ohko from a grass knot or water move even with Solid Rock or w/e the ability is.

 

[voodoo pimp]

Hey guys what would be better? A Rhperior with 252 HP and 252 Attack or one with 252 Sp Def and 252 Attack? I feel his HP is already pretty solid but his Sp Def stat is horribly lacking meaning an easy ohko from a grass knot or water move even with Solid Rock or w/e the ability is.

4 HP/252 SpD is the optimal spread according to this.

 

[Shiny Regice]

Cool thanks! I figured that was the better choice. I'm just tired of Rhyperior dying from anything that's a Sp Atk. One last EV set question: I have a Jellicent that's currently got a 252 Hp 120 Def 96 Sp Atk and 40 Sp Def. Would it be wise to keep it this way? (Saw this spread in the VGC 11 analysis) or should I change that to 252 Sp Atk? He's a TR water gem water spout user, rarely sees the light of day but sometimes I use him to get a typically solid OHKO on 2 mons in TR.

This one's a bit more detailed lol.

 

[voodoo pimp]

Cool thanks! I figured that was the better choice. I'm just tired of Rhyperior dying from anything that's a Sp Atk. One last EV set question: I have a Jellicent that's currently got a 252 Hp 120 Def 96 Sp Atk and 40 Sp Def. Would it be wise to keep it this way? (Saw this spread in the VGC 11 analysis) or should I change that to 252 Sp Atk? He's a TR water gem water spout user, rarely sees the light of day but sometimes I use him to get a typically solid OHKO on 2 mons in TR.

This one's a bit more detailed lol.

I dunno, unless you're trying to counter one specific threat, fancy defensive spreads always seemed kind of silly to me. I usually just go with 252/252/4 or whatever the defense calculator says is best.

Regarding Trick Room: I always thought the best strategy for TR teams was something along the lines of "Try to get TR up, but it's ok if I don't because all of my Pokemon are bulky as fuck and hit like a train whether I go first or not."

 

[Shiny Regice]

Well the only thing that shuts down my TR is Imprison which is manageable. That mindset is actually what I was aiming for with Rhyperior. He'd work outside of TR for a turn which is enough to get the job done if he could survive a SE special attack. I'm hoping 252 sp def will allow that but idk, I'm thinking a grass knot or scald would still take him out =/

 

[voodoo pimp]

Try a damage calculator? (or this one for the Silverlight-impaired like myself)

 

[mattj]

Wacan has pretty good in my experience if you're not going to scarf it. He's survived most non boosted STAB Thunders.

 

[soul_survivor]

Theres always type gem, sitrus, the occasional leftovers but im guessing if its not scarf boosted its 252 sp.atk, 252 speed. Rindo could be a good replacement too i guess.

 

[Shiny Regice]

Definitely Wacan. Grass is so uncommon compared to Tbolt and even Thunder. That Wacan will come in handy in numerous matches.

 

[Baldafor]

Is phazing a viable anti-Trick Room strategy? It seems most people rely on setting up Trick Room by using Follow Me, a Fake Out user, or using Mental Herb to prevent Taunt. Roar and Whirlwind, or possibly Dragon Tail, seem like they would work extremely well.

 

[voodoo pimp]

Well, Follow Me and Fake Out both beat phazing just as easily, so it's not very reliable. Really, if your team can't handle Trick Room being up, you should consider rebuilding it, because it's probably going to happen at some point no matter what you do.

 

[Misdreavus]

Is phazing a viable anti-Trick Room strategy? It seems most people rely on setting up Trick Room by using Follow Me, a Fake Out user, or using Mental Herb to prevent Taunt. Roar and Whirlwind, or possibly Dragon Tail, seem like they would work extremely well.

It can work, but as voodoo pimp pointed out, Fake Out and Follow Me / Rage Powder (which all good TR teams should have) will shut it down, so you'll have to be prepared for that. You'd need a fast Fake Out user who could outspeed their Fake Out / Follow Me / Rage Powder user and flinch it to keep it from flinching your phaser. Inner Focus on your phaser can be helpful too (Dragonite and Crobat are good examples), but you'll still have to deal with Follow Me / Rage Powder.

 

[Hoyle]

Fake Out/Follow Me/Rage Powder are all on the same Priority and the highest base Speeds people will be using for those in Trick Room is likely around 70 for Fake Out (Hitmontop/Ludicolo) and 80 for Follow Me (Togekiss) and they won't be running much speed so they don't cripple themselves. So a decent speed Fake Out + a phasing move seems like a workable strategy.

 

[Baldafor]

Considering the popularity of Weavile, Mienshao and Infernape in Doubles, I don't think it would be difficult at all to pull off the strategy.

The strategy I was in particular trying to counter was Amoongus + Cresselia as a lead, which is very difficult to prevent from setting up. If you Fake Out Amoongus and Roar/Whirlwind/Dragon Tail Cresselia, they will not get Trick Room up, guaranteed.

Is there something I am missing that would make the strategy fail? Does Roar/Whirlwind affect Ghost pokemon? Are there any Trick Room users that have Soundproof or Suction Cups?

 

[R Inanimate]

Is there something I am missing that would make the strategy fail? Does Roar/Whirlwind affect Ghost pokemon? Are there any Trick Room users that have Soundproof or Suction Cups?

Turn 1, opponent Double Protects to block your Fake Out, followed by Rage Powder + Trick Room on the next turn will still allow them to get TR up. There's no reason that the opponent has to get their Trick Room up right from Turn 1 after all.

 

[Captains]

Considering the popularity of Weavile, Mienshao and Infernape in Doubles, I don't think it would be difficult at all to pull off the strategy.

The strategy I was in particular trying to counter was Amoongus + Cresselia as a lead, which is very difficult to prevent from setting up. If you Fake Out Amoongus and Roar/Whirlwind/Dragon Tail Cresselia, they will not get Trick Room up, guaranteed.

Is there something I am missing that would make the strategy fail? Does Roar/Whirlwind affect Ghost pokemon? Are there any Trick Room users that have Soundproof or Suction Cups?

How about a Cradilily.

 

[bwburke94]

Has there been any discussion here regarding the legality of Sketched moves? AFAIK, they're banned.

 

[R Inanimate]

How about a Cradilily.

He was asking if there were any Pokemon with Suction Cups that can learn Trick Room. Cradily doesn't learn Trick Room.

Has there been any discussion here regarding the legality of Sketched moves? AFAIK, they're banned.

You've asked this before, so I'll quote the response:

"Sketch isn't a way of learning moves. When moves are acquired through Sketch they have the message "______ sketched x" as opposed to "______ learned x." By definition, acquiring moves via Sketch is not learning a move perse but the acquisition of said moves is just a secondary effect of using the Sketch attack.

Please use common sense while reading these rules. "

Aside from Sky Drop and Dark Void, you are allowed to use any move from Sketch.

 

[Solace]

sketched moves arent banned, only sketched dark void and sky drop, since those moves have been banned.

edit: bs ninjad

 

[Zog]

I still don't really agree with phazing moves. Remember, you're supposed to be killing the opponent, not shuffling them around. Unless your fake outer and phazer can reasonably sweep the opposing trick room team, it's not worth doing.

The best course of action is to just bear in mind that being under trick room isn't the end of the world and then to sit it out, and sweep when it runs out. This is especially true against openings like cresselia/amoonguss that almost always get trick room up, yet are actually utterly shite. This is because while they do get trick room working, they also don't actually do anything to win the game.

 

[voodoo pimp]

I still don't really agree with phazing moves. Remember, you're supposed to be killing the opponent, not shuffling them around. Unless your fake outer and phazer can reasonably sweep the opposing trick room team, it's not worth doing.

Also, if the opponent looks at your lead pair and sees OH HEY OBVIOUS PHAZER and just attacks you instead of trying to set up TR, then you basically wasted a turn. And wasting turns is bad.

 

[drug_duck]

I still don't really agree with phazing moves. Remember, you're supposed to be killing the opponent, not shuffling them around. Unless your fake outer and phazer can reasonably sweep the opposing trick room team, it's not worth doing.

In which case you're better off attacking them and killing one + dealing heavy damage to the partner in the process anyway. And doing that and disrupting them with your own stuff (Fake Out guys!) is just plain superior compared to all those nifty, shoddy and unreliable tools that always get mentioned when it comes to countering Trick Room such as FO + Taunt (loses to double Protect and T2 setup and Mental Herb), FO + Phaze (what if they attack? Congrats you're one step closer to losing), Imprison (deadweight if you aren't playing TR and Imprison-user can get killed anyway). And well there is just NO NEED to overspecialize on countering that team style. It's almost as ridiculous as splashing defensive Ludicolo, Ferrothorn and whatnot onto one's team just to counter Rain Dance lol

The best course of action is to just bear in mind that being under trick room isn't the end of the world and then to sit it out, and sweep when it runs out. This is especially true against openings like cresselia/amoonguss that almost always get trick room up, yet are actually utterly shite. This is because while they do get trick room working, they also don't actually do anything to win the game.

I wholeheartedly agree. This is actually the whole point I'm trying to getting across... Trick Room as a team style is just inferior to Goodstuffs since yeah usually those Fake Outers and Follow Me users are setting up and then what? Almost all TR teams I've seen have been severely lacking in damage output and if you're playing it smart, just attacking them while they can't do too much to you, you'll almost certainly come out on top. It gets interesting if they've got means to get their sweepers in (Eject Button!) while setting up but even then TR is bound to fail against well-organized goodstuff.

 

[mattj]

So the only things that my team has occasionally failed to has been overwhelming hax, lucky predictions, and very bulky goodstuffs. I can't do much about the first and second, but does anyone have any general suggestions for handling bulky goodstuffs? Historically, I've always failed against them.

 

[voodoo pimp]

Well, I'm using bulky goodstuffs myself, so I don't want to give away too many secrets :P

But goodstuffs is by definition pretty much uncounterable, so you might be better off trying to identify the specific Pokémon/types/whatever that tend to give you trouble, and adjust your team to deal with those.