Ladder Balanced Hackmons

[Rumors]

Deo-S would be another good Imposter partner so long as you don't lead with Deo. They'll see a lack of Moldy and then send in the Bouncer, which will get trapped.


Meanwhile, for fun, I thought of a dumb gimmick.

Shedinja @ Focus Sash
Justified
Baton Pass/Endeavor/Extreme Speed or Ice Shard/Recycle (Or three other filler moves)

Moldy Pursuit murders Sturdy Sheddy. This set lures in said Pursuit, gets an attack boost, and then passes to a sweeper. Reliable? No. Better than regular Sheddy? Doubtful. Useful? Maybe. Gimmicky? Oh yeah.

 

[Kit Kasai]

Deo-S would be another good Imposter partner so long as you don't lead with Deo. They'll see a lack of Moldy and then send in the Bouncer, which will get trapped.


Meanwhile, for fun, I thought of a dumb gimmick.

Shedinja @ Focus Sash
Justified
Baton Pass/Endeavor/Extreme Speed or Ice Shard/Recycle (Or three other filler moves)

Moldy Pursuit murders Sturdy Sheddy. This set lures in said Pursuit, gets an attack boost, and then passes to a sweeper. Reliable? No. Better than regular Sheddy? Doubtful. Useful? Maybe. Gimmicky? Oh yeah.

Or you could go with scrappy shed or magic guard shed XD

 

[Uselesscrab]

Or you could go with scrappy shed or magic guard shed XD

And while we're at it, why not use Magic Bounce?

(On a serious note, I would rather use refrigerate or pixilate shed than scrappy, since it's more useful in general.)

 

[Rumors]

Megalutions can block Trick even when they're not holding any items. Is this a bug or intended behavior? I wanna lean towards the former since they're still vulnerable to Knock Off if they don't have their stone.

 

[Gerard]

Megalutions can block Trick even when they're not holding any items. Is this a bug or intended behavior? I wanna lean towards the former since they're still vulnerable to Knock Off if they don't have their stone.

It's intended, the same way Arceus and Giratina are immune to trick while holding their form-changing items

 

[Rumors]

But it wasn't holding it's megastone. It had no item at all because I hit it with Knock Off earlier.

 

[Uselesscrab]

So, now that mega stones no longer prevent Knock Off, what's the best anti-Knock Off strategy?

 

[Rumors]

It was holding Lefties. Sorry for the lack of clarification.

Megastones still block Knock Off and Trick.

Megalutions block Trick regardless of item or ability. This seems like it might be a bug.

 

[Monte Cristo]

It was holding Lefties. Sorry for the lack of clarification.

Megastones still block Knock Off and Trick.

Megalutions block Trick regardless of item or ability. This seems like it might be a bug.

are you sure it wasn't just some guy trying how good sticky hold is?

 

[Rumors]

Well since I knocked off its Lefties, I'm pretty sure.

 

[Monte Cristo]

Well since I knocked off its Lefties, I'm pretty sure.

Did you check if your knock off user was moldy?

 

[Kit Kasai]

I think it's a result of intended behavior, not a bug. Megas weren't intended to be able to be used w/o stones in game, so it makes sense if immunity to trick was coded into megas themselves, not the stones.

Then again, this doesn't explain why their items can still be knocked off w/o mold breaker.

 

[asterat]

I love BH. Come back to me!

Anyway I have been trying out a couple things on the BH ladder. Here are my favorite sets so far:

Tyranitar-Mega @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 SDef / 252 Spd
Careful Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Crunch
- Knock Off / Drain Punch
- Stone Edge / Head Smash

Probably my favorite set in all of balanced hackmons at the moment. Mega-Tyranitar is just incrediblly bulky. He has 404 HP / 399 Def / 837 SpD when including both Assault Vest and Sandstorm. He has so much special bulk he can comfortably check Mega-Mewtwo Y without Secret Sword.

252 SpA Mewtwo Aura Sphere vs. +1 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tyranitar in sand: 128-152 (31.68 - 37.62%) -- 90.28% chance to 3HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Mewtwo Aura Sphere vs. +1 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tyranitar in sand: 166-198 (41.08 - 49%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Not to mention that Tyranitar's Dark STAB is really good. Crunch does a decent chunk to Giratina and, Sucker Punch makes a great move to check Mewtwo and Lugia, and STAB Knock Off becomes incredibly annoying to the opponent with imposters. Drain Punch gives me some recovery and let's me hit Steel-types harder than Crunch. It's a hard choice. Stone Edge is his most powerful move that doesn't have recoil. But considering that TTar has a large HP stat that makes the recoil lesser, that power can sometimes come in handy. Pair it with Giratina and you are good to go. Also it makes a nice anti-Shedninja poke with Knock Off + Sandstream.

Aerodactyl-Mega @ Choice Band
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 SDef / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Head Smash
- Earthquake
- Tailwind

Revenge killer, wall-breaker, and game saver sums up what Mega-Aerodactyl does. Mega Aerodactyl completely outclasses Archeops except for the inability to use special attack. He has significantly more bulk, more speed, and higher attack when using an Adamant nature. Brave Bird is one of the more powerful priorities in the tier and it is great for revenge killing errant Mewtwo-X. Since Aerodactyl has very high speed, his priority out-prioritizes almost everyone else. The extra bulk + Rock-typing is good for staying alive vs Extremespeed users like Slaking.

Arceus @ Fist Plate
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 SDef / 252 Spd
Modest Nature / Timid
- Boomburst
- Judgment
- Quiver Dance / Tail Glow
- Magic Coat

You want a powerful sweeper that is easy to counter when impostered, but has completely unresisted coverage? If the answer is yes, say hello to Boomburst Scrappy Arceus. Boomburst is a very powerful attack backed by STAB. Fighting Judgement nails Aegislash and Mega-Tyranitar. If a Imposter Pokemon comes in, all they will have his mono-normal coverage. This is easy to stop with an Unaware Steel-type such as Aegislash or Tyranitar.

edit: bobbyvaporeon it doesn't have multitype. I have used it on PS! and it stays normal.

The reason AV ttar doesn't work is pretty much every m2y runs secret sword, aura sphere is really, REALLY, outdated. Also the norm for AV mons is to run regenerator. Also yeah the arceus is outclassed by arceus ghost. Welcome back to BH though.

 

[Rumors]

Did you check if your knock off user was moldy?

PH Giratina was the only user on that team. Didn't have moldy anywhere on it, in fact.

I think it's a result of intended behavior, not a bug. Megas weren't intended to be able to be used w/o stones in game, so it makes sense if immunity to trick was coded into megas themselves, not the stones.

Then again, this doesn't explain why their items can still be knocked off w/o mold breaker.

We don't know how it's coded in-game. But we do know that Gira-O is vulnerable to Trick and Knock Off if you hack it into existence without its respective orb. I feel that Megalutions should follow the same precedent until we can prove otherwise.

 

[Uselesscrab]

Okay, so as some of you may know, someone trapped me in an endless battle yesterday. (Block, Heal Pulse, Leppa, all that.) I forfeited after about 130 turns, and he posted a thread in this forum entitled "How to do well in Balanced Hackmons" with the replay in the OP. (It was locked soon afterward.)

Basically, I know we've debated this in the past, but I really see no reason to continue to allow a strategy that is purely detrimental to the metagame and serves no purpose but to infuriate the opponent so much that they feel inclined to forfeit.

 

[yikes]

Okay, so as some of you may know, someone trapped me in an endless battle yesterday. (Block, Heal Pulse, Leppa, all that.) I forfeited after about 130 turns, and he posted a thread in this forum entitled "How to do well in Balanced Hackmons" with the replay in the OP. (It was locked soon afterward.)

Basically, I know we've debated this in the past, but I really see no reason to continue to allow a strategy that is purely detrimental to the metagame and serves no purpose but to infuriate the opponent so much that they feel inclined to forfeit.

ENDLESS BATTLE CLAUSE GO! (Please make that a thing)

 

[Kit Kasai]

ENDLESS BATTLE CLAUSE GO! (Please make that a thing)

I thought that already was a thing. So it's not being enforced?

 

[yikes]

I thought that already was a thing. So it's not being enforced?

It's not a thing in BH. It's in standard but not in BH.

 

[Kit Kasai]

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/balanced-hackmons-extreme-stalling.3485939/

What happened to heal pulse ban?

 

[Adrian Marin]

This may be possible with a Struggle clause, all moveset + ability + item bans are unpractical.

There are just too many ways of using this strategy, even if Leppa Berry is banned (which should not be banned imo) we will still have to prepare for the many other ways of using this strategy.
It's also really easy to avoid if you scout before you act, this might even teach players to scout more, if you don't scout
excessively, you're not playing BH right.

EDIT: I also said this before:

How would banning this set be possible without harming potential sets? The only way to completely stop this strategy from working would be to ban Sitrus Berry, Leppa Berry, Ingrain, Magnet Pull and all other permanent trapping effects. Banning all this would cause more damage than good.

If consistency is not of concern then it wouldn't be a good idea to try banning the strategy especially when there are so many ways of doing it, however, if consistency is of concern, an easy fix would be to ban Leppa Berry, Ingrain + Magnet Pull/ perma-trap moves and/or 2 of the same move on Magnet Pull / perma-trap pokemon.

I think we shouldn't get too hasty, banning a strategy that is not even used in this metagame would only cause complications (especially when there are so many ways of pulling it off.)

To be honest, I did not want this strategy banned so I made everyone believe Heal Pulse would ruin the strategy but actually, Heal Pulse will barely even affect it.

 

[Rumors]

Punishing someone for not scouting enough by locking them in an endless battle until they forfeit or the server restarts is not a good or useful lesson on any sort of level.

In any case, banning Healing Pulse and duplicate moves on the same Pokemon (say, Tackle/Tackle/filler/filler) would stop a lot of this without impacting legitimate strategies at all. There's no good reason why that shouldn't be done.

 

[Adrian Marin]

Sure, you can ban those, we still have to deal with the 15+ other ways of doing it....

 

[Rumors]

We can deal with those if or when they do come up. A Struggle clause that Zarel suggested in the original discussion could probably handle a bunch of those too.

 

[Klang]

While implementing this sort of clause in standard tiers works fine because there's only one or two ways to do it, I think doing it in BH is completely impractical considering that the ways to execute this strategy are innumerable with the rule set this tier has.

 

[Rumors]

I still don't see that as a reason not to get rid of the obvious and easy methods that don't impact any legitimate strategies. I mean, is there any way to even use Heal Pulse in singles in a fashion that doesn't heal the opponent?