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

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It is perfectly legal. Cybertron even won nationals with the ability to take notes. It is a very powerful tool when playing best of 3.

That's pretty interesting, I might try doing that at worlds, especially for things like counting the turns of tailwind/trick room/weather

Even more so is to note the moves and items the opponent is using. In best of 3 knowing what moves they have will make prediction much easier.

Also taking notes on speed vs your own pokemon will be helpful.
 
Is Pressure a viable ability in doubles, or are they just too quick to hope it runs down their pp?
Also, how unreliable is it to plan to use a shuckle partner to take advantage of guard split to raise your other poke's Def/Spd?
 
Is Pressure a viable ability in doubles, or are they just too quick to hope it runs down their pp?
Also, how unreliable is it to plan to use a shuckle partner to take advantage of guard split to raise your other poke's Def/Spd?

Pressure is almost always a filler ability, due to VGC battles being fast paced it will be hard for it to have any noticeable effect. If a Pokemon with it can have another ability, that ability is likely the better one. That Shuckle strategy seems unreliable to me, considering that it and the partner would have to suffer a full turn of damage before you get set up.

Szymoninho, go in the Other Teams section of the Rate My Team forum to post VGC/Doubles teams.
 
Also, how unreliable is it to plan to use a shuckle partner to take advantage of guard split to raise your other poke's Def/Spd?
Although you shouldn't solely rely on the strategy, Guard Split Shuckle + Eviolite Chansey is one of the scariest things in this metagame, because after Guard Split, Chansey is guarenteed not to be even 4HKO'd by any attack in the metagame, and can act as a huge annoyance to the opponent.
 
While a nearly indestructible Chansey is nice, you do need to watch the timer in an official VGC match. The Chansey might be able to solo your opponent's team but it might not have the time to actually pull it off. Fortunately a Chansey-Shuckle team will almost certainly have an amazing second tiebreaker (total current HP/total max HP) so you only need to make sure you at least tie the first tiebreaker (number of Pokemon remaining).
 
About the whole shuckle + chansey idea, couldn't one taunt to shuckle entirely mess up the combination?

Yes, you could, but the shuckle/chansey player can then just kill you.

Honestly, taunt is one of the worst moves in the game. You're always better off just killing the target.

just crush the opponent with powerful attacks !
 
Yes, you could, but the shuckle/chansey player can then just kill you.

Honestly, taunt is one of the worst moves in the game. You're always better off just killing the target.

just crush the opponent with powerful attacks !
I can explain in many reasons why you're wrong right now, but I'll just let my Cresselia set up a Trick Room freely and my Sableye freely disable all of your powerful attackers.
 
Do you guys think that VGC 2013 they will restrict Thundurus-T because he seems like a handfull
They've only ever banned event-only and BST 660+ legendaries, so it's not going to get banned for its power. However, I've heard that they might allow BW1 carts in the tournament, so if they do the Therians might be banned for being unobtainable in those games. Personally, I think they'll probably be allowed.
 
I'll just let my Cresselia set up a Trick Room freely and my Sableye freely disable all of your powerful attackers.

That's okay because Cresselia and Sableye aren't doing anything to hurt me. :3

Remember, you win at Pokémon by KOing all your opponent's guys and having advantage on the field. Taunt doesn't help you with that, which is why it's a bad move.

At best, you're losing one attack to prevent one setup move (and maybe cause a switch too). At worst, you're wasting an attack entirely.

Sableye's also terrible. Just kill their other mon 3 times and you've won lol it's so easy it's not even funny.
 
That's okay because Cresselia and Sableye aren't doing anything to hurt me. :3

Oh hey let's cripple your attackers with Will-o-Wisp / Thunder Wave / Spore while benefiting my own team with Helping Hand / Screens / TR / Tailwind / Follow Me / Rage Powder or now plain straight attacking you etc.

Remember, you win at Pokémon by KOing all your opponent's guys and having advantage on the field. Taunt doesn't help you with that, which is why it's a bad move.
You may win KOing all your opponent's, but can you do so if your opponent sets up a blockade from you?! Also, you forget that your opponent can have more than just a Cress/Sabyele on their field. E.g. Gonna KO Cress with TTar? Think again! They have a Scizor or a Hitmontop! Gonna use Scizor, etc etc etc and then they can set up on your team

You don't necessary always need Taunt, but it is sure a helpful move to block status moves with can help to your advantage. But, it is true that sometimes brute forcing can overpower Support mons like Cress or Sabyele, but it's still useful to have Taunt

tl;dr taunt is useful and not a bad move
 
Yeah those things are all easily outplayable. What I'm meaning is, taunt is never the best move to use.

Note how you should leave Cress and Sableye there the whole game and just kill the other guy, lol. So in the case of top vs your ttar and other guy, just protect ttar to bait out the close combat and then kill top. Simple, really. Killing everything but cress/sableye is nearly a win condition in itself.

Burns off sableye aren't even a big deal, they miss 30% of the time and halved damage output is the same penalty you get for using sableye.

haha tad no i do listen to it obviously but zog does know best

:D

im really good at postmodern pokemon
 
Zog adopted a hyperoffensive style of play after being eliminated in the LCQ by 4 Pokemon - 3 of them holding choice items - with one move each.
 
Jajaja funny thing is, it's actually true, that's what made me get good.

I don't play hyper offense though lol it's definitely balanced.

Losing to the proverbial monkey at a typewriter* made me learn that you should never rely on your opponent to do particular things, which is part of why taunt's such a bad move.

Don't take anything for granted guys that's a great lesson in life and Pokémon. Assume your opponent sucks unless they're Ray or Wolfey or someone!

*obviously not literally but do you really expect to press the A button repeatedly and to not appear to be an idiot, it's the 1 attack part that gets to me it's like "whoever this team was made for is too dumb to make a rational decision" and is quite literally insulting to everyone who comes into contact with it; i disagree with it and everything it stands for on a fundamental level and now i'm ranting
 
It was made for a junior who couldn't read yet. It had been a well-known team for about 3 months before you got beat by it.
 
Because silly me expected a well-hyped adult would be able to, you know, play the game. My bad. (And yes obviously I knew the team and why it was made; if you really want me to get into detail then I will because it wasn't a fair loss but I'd rather tash out with foodking's armpit)

Anyway, that stuff's been done with for nearly 2 years now lol. No need to bring it up in the first place, mind, but yeah it did help me become pretty damn good at Pokémon as opposed to just above average.

So yes, I absolutely love being contrary; that's just me. I'm an impish little minx. Or I think I am. But I'm also completely right. ;3

If anyone thinks I'm wrong then POKÉMON BATTLE ME. YOU WON'T WIN.

YOLO KIDS
 
I think zog's point is that there's no use taunting a helping hand user if you can just ohko the attacker, ohko the hh user, cripple them with a status move or icy wind, or switch into something that resists the attack. Essentially, if your only response to a common support/tr user such as cresselia or amoongus is to just taunt them, then you probably need to build a better team.
I'm not going to go as far as to say taunt should NEVER be used, I just think it is very overrated and often used without much thought, and is often a waste of a move slot that could be devoted to something much more useful. Taunt can be effective, but using it as your only answer to a ultitude of threats is just not a good idea. There's no shortcut to beating status pokemon or tr, and taunt is definately no exception.
 
I actually have to agree with Zog to an extent. But I do think Taunt is useful against pure supporters, because then you've basically taken them out without letting your opponent send something else in to replace it.
 
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