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Speaking of weird AI behavior I had this battle against a lead Salamence3.
Battle 119 against Roller Skater, Link: EV4G-WWWW-WW62-EL8U
After I stalled out it's Draco Meteor PP it constantly used Brick Break on my Talonflame ( which obviously hit my Mawile switch in ) despite it still had PP left on STAB Dragon Rush.
I generally believed AI would use the most damaging damage move against your active pokemon but it doesn't seem it was the case there.
And on the turn I stayed in with Talonflame he actually Dragon Rush'ed me. Some time I feel the AI select the move right after the player made the choice.
You can tell I was a little irritated at the end of the battle by how I used Mawile in the end, But well, I made sure to stall out Earthquake first.
Ironically a critical Earthquake is exactly what ended this streak.
This is normal AI behaviour, they pick their moves a lot more randomly once they're out of PP for their strongest one. I've stalled so many Pokemon entirely out of PP with Gliscor, and they always mixed things up kinda erratically once their optimal move was out of PP, they didn't go cleanly down the list. I can't watch your video rn but assuming your plan was Roost stall Draco Meteor then switch-stall Dragon Rush and Earthquake, there's unfortunately no way to be sure it won't throw out a random Brick Break.
This is normal AI behaviour, they pick their moves a lot more randomly once they're out of PP for their strongest one. I've stalled so many Pokemon entirely out of PP with Gliscor, and they always mixed things up kinda erratically once their optimal move was out of PP, they didn't go cleanly down the list. I can't watch your video rn but assuming your plan was Roost stall Draco Meteor then switch-stall Dragon Rush and Earthquake, there's unfortunately no way to be sure it won't throw out a random Brick Break.
Since Mawile is immune to both dragon type moves and Talonflame is immune to Earthquake, my plan was to switch stall out Salamence3's Dragon STAB and Earthquake so I can set up either Mawile or Talonflame, But what happened was after Salamence3 used up it's Draco Meteor PP, it used Brick Break on Talonflame ( which hit Mawile switch-in ), this made stalling out it's Dragon STAB and setup Talonflame much more difficult so I ended up with setting up Mawile to +2 ( unsafe health due to all the damage taken from Brick Break and a critical Brick Break can deal up to 42% ) after stalling out it's remaining Earthquake PP and Knocked Salamence3 out with a +2 Sucker Punch.
By the way from these 153 battles I found out Mawile is quite vulnerable to crits, one battle I remember was facing Donphan4, in the course of switch-stalling it's Stone Edge PP it Stone Edge crit My non-Mega Mawile ( did quite a lot in the process ). Mawile's power after mega evolving is decent and can often sweep with just +2 Sucker Punch but in tanking resisted hits it's way worse than Aegislash. If I ever give maison another run with this team I may switch Mawile with Aegislash. Do you think this will improve the team's overall quality?
Also the team is quite vulnerable to some lead water type, especially fast ones like Greninja and starmie. I didn't encounter lead starmie but saw Greninja4 at least once, his Blizzard didn't freeze Garchomp so I retaliated with Outrage, this allowed me to finish it off with Talonflame ). If he got the freeze things can go a lot worse, Sharp Beak Talonflame's Brave Bird doesn't guarantee a OHKO on Greninja4.
I'm thinking of replacing Garchomp with a scarf Thundurus-T set, this enables removal of water type without risking of losing a team member in the process while still gives the team a electric immunity.
How the AI act towards Volt Absorb by the way, do they stop using electric moves at all after triggering the ability or do they ignore it and keep spamming electric moves?
This is my first over 50 run. I just started playing Pokemon again (last i played was XY back in 2014)
I missed this after 20 years I've finally broken 70 wins
Unfortunately, inexperience got me as I did not expect weather ball to suddenly turn fire hahaha
Mega Scizor / Garchomp / Azumarill
My team is Identical to Aircraft Cemetery but Sand Veil Garchomp over Rough Skin (I don't have Rough skin from XY days sadly)
After almost an year and half of intermittent playing and breeding, I've managed to get all 5 trophies, yesterday with super triples being the last holdout. I have attached a picture as proof.
Unfortunately I only have the video of the super triples, since some of the Chateileine battles happened some time ago and I failed to save them: K8WG-WWWW-WW63-YMJR (I got lucky with the flinch hax)
Teams used against the chateileines: (Apologies for some of the explanations being barebones but a lot of my mons were "inspired" by the leaderboard and I stopped at 50 battles for pretty much all formats. The triples team is the one I am proud of most)
I got exceptionally lucky while soft-resetting and got a shiny Suicune on around my 10th attempt. Once I got it and found that it had flawless ivs in hp/def/spatk, I knew I had to use it. It's speed and spdef aren't perfect unfortunately, so I piled all evs in hp and def. The rest of the set is standard stuff. For a lot of battles, Suicune almost single handedly steam-rolled all 3 of my opponents.
I had Outrage on him initially, but getting locked into it cost me a couple of times. I changed from Poison Jab to Iron head for the last slot. Poison Jab helped me with a few bulky grass types but the rest of my team deals with them easily, so I moved to Iron head which allows me to hit some bulky ice types better.
The weakest member of my team and the one who will need changes if I ever go for extending my streak beyond the current 50. The only thing Gengar really does is take on some bulky grass types.
I initially used sub-disable Gengar online back in gen 5 and loved it. But it sucks hard here because the AI is unpredictable and I never got around to changing it. I will probably change to destiny bond/thunderbolt + sash.
When I first started battling and breeding back in gen 5, the first Pokemon I IV bred was a Conkeldurr named Clowncrete, back in 2011 and it is one of my most cherished Pokemon ever (and the basis for my username). Clowncrete2 is the "grandson" of that original Clowncrete, hence the name and it having Guts instead of sheer force. It's inclusion in this team is pretty much symbolic, since it rarely sees battle apart from cleaning up with Mach Punch.
Once again, the same one as the one I use in Singles. I had an empty slot so I chose him since he can cleanup with Bullet Punch.
My most creative team is my triples one. I initially start off with a trick room team with the standard aron + dusclops, but I found it lacking because 3 Pokemon targeting Aron renders it useless on the second turn and Dusclops does too little damage in Triples. I added Tyranitar as the 3rd mon to add sandstorm damage, but the damage was still lacking. I realized that issue was Dusclops and abandoned Trick Room for a sand storm offensive team. The ivs on Alakazam and Hydreigon are not perfect since I bred them in gen 5 and only 2 of their stats have perfect ivs.
Simple offensive T-tar. It sets up sandstorm for my Landorus. I go for protect first turn without mega-evolving. It shields my ttar from the landorus earthquake as well as gives me a chance to reset weather in the second turn by mega-evolving if it's changed by my opponent. The only time I don't protect is if I am facing a slower ice-type in which case i straight-away mega-evolve and go for Rock Slide to protect Landorus. Crunch gives nice coverage. Superpower is pretty much filler.
Landorus @ Wide Lens
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
IVs: xx/31/31/29/xx/31
Naive nature
- Earthquake
- Fly
- Earth Power
- Rock Slide
The star of the team. Sand force boosted Earthquake destroys everything. If I encounter flyers or levitators, I go for Rock Slide which is also boosted by Sand Force and the flinch chance has proven very useful multiple times. Fly was initially filler but it surprisingly serves very well. If I encounter multiple ice types in the first turn and if I can't ko them straight away, I go for Fly and try to get rid of them with the 2 wing mons. Fly also hurts the likes of Chestnaught and Breloom who resist the Earth-Slide combo. It also helps later in the battle if i move Landorus to a side slot and can hit the opposite rival mon. Lastly Earth Power was also filler but boosted by Sand Force, it proves useful against many Pokemon with stronger defense than special defense and when I don't want to use a spread move.
Hydreigon primarily sets up Tailwind in the first turn. Then depending on what I am facing I just spam an attacking move. Draco Meteor if any mon needs to die immediately. Dark Pulse's ability to hit the opposite side mon really helps.
Default bait aron. I generally bring it out in the center slot if Landorus falls. Bringing it out late generally helps it stay longer, especially since there is no trick room to help. If an opponent sets up Stealth Rock, then it becomes useless though.
I had bred this one for singles, but it has helped out here. It is the last pokemon I send out, generally when there are 1-2 mons left. The Ai doesn't seem to shift it's mons so I have got a favorable matchup a couple of times due to Aegislash's typing where I can set up to +2 and cleanup whatver remains. I might change to someone more suited to triples if I expand on this streak.
I don't remember the team I used with Multi battles, since it was more than an year ago! Anyway, onto Alola and the Battle Tree!
This maybe not about the record.
Does anyone have Typhlosion or Entei partner in Battle Maison multi battle?
I want to win multi battle at least 50 rounds in XY version.
This is my FC: 2939-3421-8895
If you have them, please message me. Thanks.
I’ve got an active streak in OR that’s my longest in a 6th gen game.
I’ve been focused more on playing to try to get to 2340+ before I leave for vacation tomorrow. I won’t be adding to the streak while traveling (paranoid about losing another 2000+ ORAS streak to a dead battery) but will try to do some streaming once I get back. If I don’t screw up, it will take another couple months until this streak is in #1 territory.
One cool thing about this team is that it has a member that, as far as I can tell, would be making its first Maison leaderboard appearance in any format! I’ll work on more of a writeup next week, but in the meantime does anyone have a guess of what that Pokémon would be?
Two additional small hints:
1. I sincerely believe the team would be weaker with anything else in its place (aka it’s not a meme selection or something).
2. If you’re able to guess the Pokémon, you’d likely be able to get at least a close approximation of what its moveset and teammates would be.
Assuming this is for singles, I'm going to guess Sneasel. It definitely fits two of the critieria (able to guess moveset/teammates and isn't on the leaderboard, i ctrl +f'd it), and there's a decent chance it fits the third one as well depending on your point of view - while it's kind of a meme, it does have some legitimate niches over other leads on a durant + 1 team.
edit: but yes, I had to qualify my statement because I also only used control+f as my rubric for whether it hasn’t been used before. For all I know, there’s some streak listed simply as (whoever)’s merry band of random triples teams or whatever and it makes an appearance there somewhere, but I’m not going to dig that far.
Is it something with a Red Card as a secondary crippler for a Durant team? You theorymonned that there might be a bulky Psychic or something like that that could replace Mimikyu from your Tree team a while ago.
Is it something with a Red Card as a secondary crippler for a Durant team? You theorymonned that there might be a bulky Psychic or something like that that could replace Mimikyu from your Tree team a while ago.
Would I be completely mad to think it might be Onix? It has Sturdy for (near) guaranteed ability to reliably activate Red Card like Mimikyu's Disguise, passable base 70 speed (second highest of any Sturdy Pokemon), Taunt and Thief like Mimikyu, and can use Rock Tomb or Bulldoze for a psuedo-Thunder Wave.
Would I be completely mad to think it might be Onix? It has Sturdy for (near) guaranteed ability to reliably activate Red Card like Mimikyu's Disguise, passable base 70 speed (second highest of any Sturdy Pokemon), Taunt and Thief like Mimikyu, and can use Rock Tomb or Bulldoze for a psuedo-Thunder Wave.
Coming up with something that outside the box could only be the good kind of madness - Onix isn’t it though. The Red Card user has higher base speed and uses the genuine Thunder Wave.
Of the candidates it's been narrowed down to, the ones I consider most likely are: Qwilfish, Liepard, Froslass, and Mismagius.
Qwilfish is almost certainly the answer because it resists HJK and fire moves and intimidate is just insanely useful in general.
Liepard is analogous to sableye, but it's weak to HJK.
Froslass is faster than Mismagius, but it's weak to fire.
Mismagius is on the list because it's fast, has high stats, and fits the criteria, but it's least likely because it doesn't really have anything specific.
Notably, Magneton is the fastest Sturdy user with thunder wave, and it speed ties Onix.
Of the candidates it's been narrowed down to, the ones I consider most likely are: Qwilfish, Liepard, Froslass, and Mismagius.
Qwilfish is almost certainly the answer because it resists HJK and fire moves and intimidate is just insanely useful in general.
Liepard is analogous to sableye, but it's weak to HJK.
Froslass is faster than Mismagius, but it's weak to fire.
Mismagius is on the list because it's fast, has high stats, and fits the criteria, but it's least likely because it doesn't really have anything specific.
Notably, Magneton is the fastest Sturdy user with thunder wave, and it speed ties Onix.
I actually was thinking it would be Drifblim - immune to HJK, decent bulk when invested, and Unburden makes it really fast when Red Card is used, requiring only minimal speed investment. It has Thunder Wave, one of Thief, Trick, or Knock Off to remove items, and can use Memento to bring Durant or Glalie in for free.
I actually was thinking it would be Drifblim - immune to HJK, decent bulk when invested, and Unburden makes it really fast when Red Card is used, requiring only minimal speed investment. It has Thunder Wave, one of Thief, Trick, or Knock Off to remove items, and can use Memento to bring Durant or Glalie in for free.
Right on! The Normal immunity is also clutch when it comes to not caring at all against Perish trap Lapras. With a spread of Jolly 40 HP/72 Def/248 Sp. Def/148 Spe it outspeeds everything post 50 after Unburden and can survive (non-crit) Magnet Thundurus Discharge and QC Donphan Stone Edge.
I run Twave/Knock Off/Flash/Confide. Memento is a nice idea, but Confide not missing and going through Protect is too good to pass up (e.g. if Glaceon4 gets switched in via Red Card I’m taking the 100% Sp. Atk drop rather than risking a miss) and I’m fine with just bringing something in for free the slower way by waiting for Drifblim to die or just risking a switch to Durant if the opponent is crippled enough to still set up against it without Truant. Even in the scenario where Durant’s gone (missing against BP Zapdos) I feel like I’d rather set up against something that’s paralyzed and -1 accuracy than paralyzed and Memento’d since more offensive mons will still be breaking Subs at -2 and just the paralysis is more than enough already for most defensive mons. Also, the cool thing about Drifblim is that it manages to split the difference where the beginning of the battle it’s acting as Mimikyu (take a hit from a bad Durant matchup and phaze it) and then it becomes more like Sableye (KO bait that moves before basically everything) so I’m not worried about something like gaining momentum against it; for example, a Trick Room user is either going to go for the KO because Drifblim was left at low health or I’m going to Confide it at least once and most likely more, at which point Drapion wouldn’t even need Truant to set up.
Drapion is the remaining teammate, mostly because I can be ‘dumb’ when setting up without worrying about being crit without a Sub or having to press through/keep track of Moody boosts but also because l’d be worried about Toxic Spikes (if I were using Glalie I could replace Confide with Defog, which similarly could be used against evasion, but that would requiring RNGing a Drifblim in an earlier game and figuring out how to transfer it over if that’s even possible still). Also walling Arena Trap Dugtrio in the event of it dodging Entrainment and Subbing on Durant is a nice perk for Drapion.
I'm now at 2521 straight wins with the triple Ds. Since I don't think you can even watch battle videos from 6th gen anymore without me replaying, recording, and uploading them, I'll do some streaming here so people who are interested can see the team in all its exciting, fast-paced glory. I'll do the first one tomorrow (August 5, ~11pm GMT) and go from there.
Background/General overview: This team abuses the AI tendency to not switch by using Entrainment to give an opposing Pokemon Truant and then freely setting up using a set-up sweeper that knows Protect. DougJustDoug wrote a very nice guide here on the nuances of using Durant and correctly notes that while leading with Durant and using two sweepers offers a unique combination of speed, reliability, and flowchart-like ease of use for even someone who has never played a Pokemon game before, there is a tradeoff between the expedited victories the second sweeper can offer and the higher likelihood of victory/superlong streaks one gets from a pure support Pokemon used to debuff bad lead matchups that may prevent Durant from successfully using Entrainment.
In the 6th generation, the most successful iterations of this had used a lead Pokemon with Prankster and a Focus Sash to do things such as remove held items such as Bright Powder, Lax Incense, and Quick Claw, prevent the use of Protect/Detect and set-up moves with Taunt, and decrease the opposing lead's stats so that it would struggle to break the set-up sweeper's Substitute as often during set-up. The 7th generation brought numerous new abilities and ability changes that rendered some Pokemon completely unable to be Entrained, which by necessity prompted the invention of leading with Durant and using a backup Pokemon holding Red Card that could switch in on a bad lead matchup and force it out.
Mimikyu was perfect for the job in the 7th generation with Disguise allowing it to take any hit from a non-Mold Breaker Pokemon. In searching for a Mimikyu replacement, I broadly knew it would have to have a good debuffing movepool. Other than that my largest constraint was Donphan4 - with its ability to completely avoid Entrainment with a Quick Claw Fissure, I knew my 3rd Pokemon would have to either have Sturdy or be immune to Ground. The next-biggest potential annoyances were Mismagius4 and Lapras4, which could potentially trap Durant or a switch-in and KO it with Perish Song before being Red Carded out. Enter Drifblim; I'll go more in-depth on it later, but just from the Ghost/Flying typing you can see it already has a lot going for it, and if it's worse than Mimikyu on paper it at least has the benefit of playing in the Maison, where there are no Megas and the AI is more forgiving.
This Durant set outspeeds Manectric4 with the rest of the EVs invested in maximizing physical defense. Protect gets a reputation of 'just use it on Slaking or something that Traces Truant so you can keep Durant at full health just in case,' but with Drapion as the sweeper instead of Glalie there are some Defense boosters with Rest such as Hippowdon4 where it's better to bring Durant back in to waste some PP with Protect than to set up Drapion and spam Knock Off hoping for a crit; you can also burn the PP of some Taunt users if you really want to ensure Drapion can fully set up against Vanilluxe or whatever.
Confide is what I use against a few special attacking Protect/Detect users such as Glaceon4, Kingdra4, Roserade4, and Venusaur4 to give Drapion an easier set-up without risking a Durant KO or a Drifblim switch-in that brings in a potential threat. I'm really off the attacking moves on Durant bandwagon where X-Scissor is only used to KO potential Exeggutor4 (which would set up Trick Room and then immediately Explode against Drapion) or Magic Bounce Espeon leads. I feel like any other attacking move would only ever be used if you really messed up elsewhere in the battle and would rather fish for luck with Guillotine than expect like Iron Head to come through when any special attacker not OHKOed by an uninvested Durant is going to 2HKO it at worst (which will be nearly all of them as even something as frail as Greninja is not a guaranteed KO) and most physical attackers will have the bulk to avoid a 2HKO from Durant and therefore would just need to 4HKO it. For full maximization reasons, this Durant is female because Rivalry Nidoking4 would have an increased chance of 2HKOing a male Durant with a Earthquake, but to be honest that isn't as big of a concern with Drifblim because I can repeatedly switch between Durant and Drifblim to run it out of Protect if need be.
The EV spread lets it hit 130 Speed, which after an Unburden boost outruns everything you see post-battle 49 in the Maison. The defensive EVs allow it to survive a Discharge from Thundurus4, which can possibly Prankster Taunt Durant, and a Stone Edge from Donphan4. Even though I don't believe it would work as well as Mimikyu in the 7th generation since there's a wider array of hard-hitting Pokemon it would need to switch in against, it feels just as reliable as or even better than Mimikyu because of the increased certainty it will move first and Thunder Wave's 100% accuracy in gen 6. Compared to previous debuffing Pokemon I've used with Durant, it's a happy medium between the near-guaranteed phazing of Mimikyu and the priority and attack baiting of Sableye.
As for the moves, Knock Off over Thief is an easy call because I want the ability to switch in on Earthquake/Fissure from Donphan and have the chance to remove its Quick Claw if I move first (or get QCed and evade Stone Edge). This Drifblim has 31 Attack IVs and is Jolly rather than Timid, so I'm not trying to get cute about minimizing confusion damage or the chance I KO something with Knock Off; in fact I've had some fun mini-sweeps with Drifblim after the opponent's entire team is revealed and I've gotten a little lucky with avoiding attacks, plus the ability to do something against Taunt users (a good example is going for a faster setup against Toxicroak without having to use all of Drapion's Protect PP by switching it in on Cross Chop, using Thunder Wave/Flash until Taunted, Knocking Off on a loafing turn and then bringing in Drapion for free on Sucker Punch) or finish off a weakened 3rd Pokemon so I can go for more quick wins with a less set-up Drapion is more than enough to justify using it over Trick. 100% Thunder Wave is a classic case of 'you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone' and of course from an avoiding attacks perspective Thunder Wave + Flash is better than two Flashes.
As I mentioned a couple posts ago, Confide is such a great debuffing move for Durant that's hard to pass up even for Memento (especially when a Drifblim that has taken an attack will often be at low enough HP to bait attacks rather than set-up moves from the Pokemon it brings out); it offers a guaranteed Special Attack debuff against Protect/Detect/evasion item users such as Glaceon that can allow Drapion to set up against them even if they manage to hax Durant. Or maybe I didn't realize that Memento was an egg move until after I'd revisited the drudgery that is breeding a competitive Pokemon up from the one random Drifloon you had in your PC box and decided that was more than enough breeding for the time being. Who's to say really?
Compared to Glalie, the other omnibooster with one STAB move that has no immunities, it hits harder on average, doesn't require as vigilant monitoring about its boosts, and one of its relative weaknesses in not being able to continue passively setting up in the event of the opposing lead switching out or KOing itself is mitigated by Drifblim plus the AI not switching out when out of attacking PP. I've briefly considered Sniper on it because with Drifblim it so rarely absolutely needs Battle Armor, but it's a nice luxury to just be able to spam Acupressure and set up faster against something like Manectric4, Conkledurr4, or anything else that lowers its stats and/or uses moves with no status effects. I deviate very slightly from the 'standard' Drapion spread where previously there were 4 Sp. Def EVs to IIRC give a +0 Drapion sub a better chance of surviving a Mismagius4 Power Gem, but Drifblim obviates that and I like the ability to break the speed tie with something like Drapion4 and be secure in KOing it with fewer turns of setup. Knock Off is one of the best attacking moves in the game, and the additional KOs it picks up with its 97.5 base power compared to other physical Dark moves and its ability to guarantee a victory against even something like Sturdy Donphan4 makes it easily Drapion's best damage-dealing option. If you're not going to run Knock Off on Drapion you might as well use a Dragon Dance or Shell Smash sweeper IMO.
Remaining threats: I believe the most common ways for this team to lose would involve one of two different trifectas of bad luck:
1) a lead that either KOs Durant or knocks it out of commission with sleep or paralysis, a 2nd Pokemon with Flame Body, and a 3rd Pokemon that resists Dark and/or can boost its defense and has Rest.
2) a lead that forces a Drifblim switch and the 2nd Pokemon brought in by Red Card also being a bad Durant matchup that also manages to get lucky against Durant because in most 'bad' Durant matchups it still has a 90+ percent chance to get an Entrainment off and furthermore matches up well against Drapion (e.g. Shuckle4 could KO Durant while preventing Entrainment but is pure set-up bait for Drapion).
The first scenario still offers plenty of opportunities for me to play around because Drapion can PP stall some Flame Body users such as Rapidash4 and Heatran to the point that they Struggle to death and Drifblim can finish off a 3rd Pokemon at low HP or switch in on the 2nd Pokemon, force it out, in all likelihood cripple the remaining opposing mon to the point that Drapion doesn't need Truant to set up against it. In the second, there are some harder-hitting Protect users such as Archeops4 and Kingdra4 that have a tiny opening to screw me over with just the right sequence of Protect and crits that wouldn't exist had I been running a debuffing lead such as Sableye. Additionally, things like the Thundurus and Donphan that I EVed Drifblim to survive could nonetheless crit and prevent it from being KOed, but even then Drifblim is throwing up an additional probability gate wherein Thundurus would need to choose the right move and have the right ability turn 1, crit turn 2, and again choose the right move turn 3 or Donphan would need to Quick Claw crit Drifblim and then QC Fissure Durant in order to be a problem.
I've lost 3 times with this team, all of which would not have occurred with Glalie in Durant's place (but at the same time I'm sure there are some unknown unknowns to me where Drapion's presence necessitated fewer Drifblim switch-ins and therefore fewer chances for scenario 2 to take place):
1) in the 500s I totally bricked it by forgetting that Iron Head had 15 PP rather than 20 and could be totally stalled out with Sub/Protect and just going for the 2HKO against a Cobalion3 (which Glalie can get due to Frost Breath always critting) that used just the right combination of moves with Psych Up the first turn and then Swaggering and getting multiple self-hits after breaking Drapion's Sub.
2) In the 800s I totally bricked it by having to waste a lot of turns trying to set Drapion up against Hippowdon1 (which Glalie can Taunt to prevent Whirlwind), having to abandon the battle for a while, and then coming back to have Drapion against Excadrill, which I stupidly tried to continue setting up against while forgetting it wasn't the lead and also had Mold Breaker to crit and OHKO me.
3) in the 1900s I brought Drifblim in on a trouble lead and Red Card brought in Carbink, which 2HKOed Durant on the switch due to a crit Power Gem (not an optimal play but not totally bricking it either) and exploded right away against Drapion to bring in Garchomp4, which would be very high up on the list of Pokemon Drifblim + unboosted Drapion couldn't handle on their own thanks to a Thunder Wave immunity and Swords Dance on the switch to Drifblim to ensure a OHKO without even being able to get a Flash off. Obviously a matchup a Subbed Glalie could've handled much better with Moody and the 4x hit against Garchomp.
In general, I don't know whether this is the Maison team I'd use if I absolutely had to win one battle (the last two times I used Sableye/Durant/Glalie I lost a streak of 1174 against a lead I hadn't encountered before, can easily play around now, and even then was the lowest-probability loss any high any singles team suffered and lost a streak of ~2260 due to battery failure), but it offers similar - if not better - likelihood of victory in a given battle while also giving plenty of battles a relatively fast Entrainment -> set up Drapion for a handful of turns option while also having Drifblim as a get out of jail free card.
The 3660s are no joke! I had been on a run where the last few hundred battles had gone relatively easily, but in the last stretch before getting to #1 (I'm at 3670 now) I've had 4 pretty interesting battles.
#3646: Worker Rasmus leads off with a female Dugtrio. On turn 1 it Protects, narrowing it down to set 1 or 2. I keep Durant in because set 2 has a Choice Band and will be switching out and set 1 will not be damaging Durant the next turn; it ends up being set 1 with Dig, Protect, Attract, and Reversal.
Now the most likely scenario for Durant vs Dugtrio1 is an annoying one in which Dugtrio evades multiple Entrainments with Dig and Protect but eventually allows Durant to get off Entrainment once it's in Dig KO range. In my mind though (I could be right or wrong, I wasn't crunching the numbers) there was some combination of damage rolls and crits that would allow Dugtrio to eventually KO on a crit Dig while not getting Entrained, which even then would be a total non-issue if it had been a male Duggy that couldn't use Attract and prevent Drapion from walling it by Protecting on the underground turns. So between that, Drifblim being immune to the whole Dugtrio set and therefore getting a free turn to cripple a switch-in, and also kind of just doing my due dilligence where I assumed I'd be Arena Trapped in anyways, I go to Drifblim turn 3. Dugtrio switches out as I use Knock Off on what is revealed to be Gigalith3, the only Explosion user Rasmus has that wouldn't also switch out against Drifblim.
In an echo of the most recent loss with the team, I preserve Drifblim and switch to Durant to be 2HKOed and get off an Entrainment on an Explosion user - this is probably suboptimal compared to just using Thunder Wave and sacrificing Drifblim in the hopes that a full paralysis might keep Durant healthier and able to switch back in on more things following Explosion or buy Drapion more boosting turns. My logic in this case was that Gigalith hits hard enough that Durant still might not be able to switch into much (a crit Stone Edge does up to 91.9%), has super-effective Earthquake to hit Drapion with unlike Carbink4 with its weaker Power Gem/Moonblast, and Rasmus (Sandstorm specialist essentially) will have lots of other Ground moves and opportunities to bring Drifblim in for free and maybe do some crippling - something like Hippowdon is a good example of a Pokemon that has sets you have a very good chance of playing around with just Drapion and Drifblim. So Drapion is in, Subs its first turn as Gigalith loafs, Protects on Sandstorm, Acupressures for I believe a Speed boost, and Protects on Explosion.
Out comes Hippowdon, which after having its Sitrus Berry removed breaks Drapion's Sub with Earthquake, revealing it to be set 3 with Yawn, Slack Off, Earthquake, and Crunch. From there the battle is anticlimactic as Drapion Sub/Protect stalls EQ and sets up, but had that 3rd Pokemon been something like Garchomp4 or Tyranitar3 it would've been an almost certain loss.
#3660: Exeggutor lead, Durant KOs with X-Scissor. Ampharos4 comes out, Drifblim switches in on Thunder, 13 HP remaining. Floatzel 4 comes out, and at this point it would have been much more in my favor for Drifblim to have been crit or Ampharos to get a better roll (11/16ths chance of OHKOing) or have been Mega like in the Tree to just KO it and bring Durant in safely. Scenario 2 is clearly in play here where Drifblim sans Red Card is out against a Pokemon it would like to use Red Card against, and on top of that Floatzel with its Aqua Jet and Protect is maybe the only Pokemon (citation needed) that is assured to outspeed and KO Drifblim in this situation and also threaten a full health Durant (also Ampharos is also super rare in terms of being able to OHKO Durant with a neutral hit and also do major damage to Drifblim but not so much as to OHKO, whereas something with a Fire move for instance is leaving Drifblim healthy enough that it could have Thunder Waved Floatzel - oh yeah, and also do major damage to Drapion so I couldn’t pivot it in either like I could’ve on a Shadow Ball or something).
Another digression here - X-Scissor again is only used to KO Espeon and Exeggutor, and in an earlier streak I had a battle against Ace Trainer Jai where Magnet Pull Magnezone3 came in after an Exeggutor KO and KOed Durant while getting +2/3 Special Attack or whatever; I was still able to set up Drapion and win because the AI gave me lots of free turns with Thunder Wave and Magnet Rise, but between Jai's small roster in terms of number of different Pokemon and also the 75% chance of facing an Exeggutor lead that isn't the Trick Room/Explosion one I just use Entrainment on Jai's Exeggutor (and Espeon too) where even the worst-case scenario of just biting the bullet with Entrainment then Subbing with Drapion its first turn out and having a 3-2 lead with a 20-30% health Drapion behind a Sub and Trick Room on the field (which after a Protect and then switching to the appropriate teammate will be over) is probably not *that* bad. Probably another situation where whether that's better than just X-Scissoring and switching to Drifblim maybe depends on the trainer but maybe is just worse and I'm now underrating the merits of just KOing Exeggutor because of the craziness of this particular battle.
So I go to Drapion on the Aqua Jet, and at this point my plan is to see if I can 1v1 it because obviously once it's KOed, even if I have no boosts I can sacrifice Drifblim to Ampharos and just Entrain it. This matchup is heavily slanted in Drapion's favor because Floatzel has a high propensity to use Protect (and in gen 6 the AI very rarely attempts to double Protect when the first Protect failed due to a switch), Drapion has a 15/16ths damage roll to KO Floatzel after 2 rounds of Life Orb recoil, and just getting a Substitute means that Floatzel can be LO stalled until either a Knock Off KO is guaranteed, Drapion emerges with an intact Sub after Floatzel KOs itself with LO, or Floatzel is stalled out of Protect and Durant can be brought in safely. The next turn Drapion and Floatzel both Protect, then Drapion Protects again on Waterfall, and then Floatzel flinches Drapion on an attempted Substitute as Waterfall leaves it at 104 HP following Black Sludge. These three turns repeat themselves again with Drapion protecting twice and being Waterfall flinched yet again. After another Protect, I switch to Durant on Waterfall. Floatzel Protects against Entrainment and can KO Durant with a crit Waterfall, so I sac Drifblim in order to get one last chance for Entrainment. Once again it blocks Entrainment, and Waterfall leaves Durant at 16 HP. Then for some stupid reason it doesn't use Aqua Jet and Durant gets off Entrainment before it faints. What the actual fuck.
#3664 - I didn't save this battle but I faced a Mismagius4 lead that got Red Carded into Donphan4. Drifblim was a champ and was able to Knock Off both the Bright Powder and Quick Claw before fainting, but it sure was a great feeling to be so close to the record and, almost immediately after another super haxy matchup/battle, see Donphan come in on chipped Drifblim and know there was a ~0.5% chance of losing to it.
#3669 - For the record battle the AI decides to troll me by pushing my strategy of having Confide on Durant to the limit. Confide is used against slower special attackers with Protect/Detect such as Roserade4, Snow Warning Abomasnow, Venusaur, Glaceon, and Samurott because Drapion is extremely likely to set up on them even without Truant once they're weakened, so there's no need to bring in Drifblim and invite some wacky scenarios like the ones above. Samurott crits with Hydro Pump on turn 1, which between the 5% chance of connecting and critting and the likelihood of it using Protect is probably once again on the order of 0.5%.
On paper this is not a guaranteed set-up for Drapion where -1 Ice Beam has a 7/16ths roll to break a Drapion sub (could've kept it down to 5/16ths if I'd kept those last 4 EVs in Special Defense), but as experienced facility players know, the AI goes into a bit of a dumb/random mode once they're out of their best move. Even with Samurott hitting all its remaining Hydro Pumps, I was ultimately able to grab a Substitute for Drapion when it Protected after using its last Hydro Pump and set up from there. The backups were Throh4 and Delphox4, so I would've also won if my strategy had been to attempt Entrainment first and then switch to Drifblim if Samurott used Protect, but in a way being able to set up Drapion even in the worst case scenario of Samurott only getting to -1 and only using 1 Hydro Pump beforehand shows how effective Confide can be in general.
I love how insane triple battles are; they’re a complete fuck fest! Just Pokémon everywhere. I remember copying someone’s Talonflame/MegaBlastoise/Sylveon starting line up (probably the person with the best streak)
I have no idea how people managed to get streaks of 1000+ in singles.
i've been playing a lot of maison on gen6 with the goal of hitting 200 wins in singles without resorting to that durant gimmick. I just did my fourth run with the Dragonite-Aegislash-Greninja team that is apparanatly pretty noob friendly and 3 of the 4 times I lost before match 100. And thats even while playing with a cheatsheet essentially with turskains calculator open with tabs for all the guys, and using a leadset guide. Lol, i have most of the 4 set movements and strategies memorized, but theres just no accounting for some of the rarer and wackier things you might find in those 1-3 ones that could pop up at anytime and often you dont have a chance of knowing until after the turn happens. that was 3 of the losses. the other was getting turn 1 sheer colded by Articuno2 right away and a turn 1 fissure by landorus in the same battle. that was interesting lol
I have no idea how people managed to get streaks of 1000+ in singles.
i've been playing a lot of maison on gen6 with the goal of hitting 200 wins in singles without resorting to that durant gimmick. I just did my fourth run with the Dragonite-Aegislash-Greninja team that is apparanatly pretty noob friendly and 3 of the 4 times I lost before match 100. And thats even while playing with a cheatsheet essentially with turskains calculator open with tabs for all the guys, and using a leadset guide. Lol, i have most of the 4 set movements and strategies memorized, but theres just no accounting for some of the rarer and wackier things you might find in those 1-3 ones that could pop up at anytime and often you dont have a chance of knowing until after the turn happens. that was 3 of the losses. the other was getting turn 1 sheer colded by Articuno2 right away and a turn 1 fissure by landorus in the same battle. that was interesting lol
If you want to avoid using the Durant strategy, then one thing that can help is leading with a Sturdy user to avoid those turn one OHKO moves, since Sturdy makes a Pokemon immune to those. Carracosta and Crustle are the only two available that gen that can also have shell smash (besides Shuckle, but no one is going to sweep with Shuckle...). Carracosta is the slower of the two but it's better suited for a special set than Crustle is, which also lets you shrug off intimidates and burns. Its STABs also handily counter the exact things you say hit you with OHKOs. A strong special attacker with psyshock can also be a boon to any team, and rounding that out with strong SE coverage to deal with dark types will stop it from being walled. A strong physical attacker as the last mon will help keep the team balanced.
So I discovered this forum a couple of months ago and have been grinding to get a satisfactory record. I got to a record of 948 with the team of Mega Salamence, Chance, and Aegislash. I lost because I got a bit reckless because I was distracted. Code: H7XG-WWWW-WW67-CTKZ
I basically took the teams from GG Unit and VaporeonIce and changed up the chansey set so battles would end faster.
Here is another failed run at 633 where I tried to switch around a Wailord and got murdered. 86RW-WWWW-WW67-CTKR
So I discovered this forum a couple of months ago and have been grinding to get a satisfactory record. I got to a record of 948 with the team of Mega Salamence, Chance, and Aegislash. I lost because I got a bit reckless because I was distracted. Code: H7XG-WWWW-WW67-CTKZ
I basically took the teams from GG Unit and VaporeonIce and changed up the chansey set so battles would end faster.
Here is another failed run at 633 where I tried to switch around a Wailord and got murdered. 86RW-WWWW-WW67-CTKR
Oopsies, with Substitute instead of Toxic you could just switch Chansey directly in on Wailord and not have to worry as much about OHKO moves. I guess with your method the streak certainly did end faster lol.
Also I thought I was straightforward enough with it in the streak I did back in gen 6, but apparently not. I did that streak just to show that the moveset with Substitute and Mimimize instead of Toxic and Growl was better even without needing to use a better EV spread. Combine the better moveset with a better EV spread (obviously max Defense is overkill when Intimidate and King's Shield already reduce Attack, and it's not like you're gonna switch Chansey in on attack boosters anyways) to outspeed stuff that will attempt status or OHKO moves on Chansey (hmm I bet it would be nice to outspeed say a Wailord that uses Fissure), and that's how I got a better streak using a team I technically didn't create myself. I certainly thought of using it once Mega Salamence came out but was held back by thinking Clear Body Metagross would shit on the team; it turned out that Gamefreak was just lazy where the Mega Evolutions that came out during X and Y wouldn't be targeted with Trick, but the ones introduced later like Mega Salamence would be.
Basically the same team as GG Unit, but with everyone's speed increased. The added speed on Kanga is really nice, especially to outspeed Gallade, Magmortar, and Typhlosion pre-Mega and Serperior post-Mega (makes battles much quicker). I've never really missed the damage output from Adamant. 177 HP on Gliscor to hit a Poison Heal number + 1 and 129 Speed to outspeed CM Cobalion and Mienshao, and also guarantees all Terrakion will be slower after a bulldoze. This makes it safer to PP waste its Stone Edges. 86 Speed on Chansey is to outspeed Walrein and get a sub up before it can use an OHKO move, also sneakily helpful against some slower offensive Pokemon. For example, Carracosta 4 even after its Weakness Policy boosts will not use Aqua Jet on Chansey because the AI assumes its slower, but she outspeeds >:)
I think I will stop my Battle Maison run here, I only wanted to get the Starf Berry to say I got it in 3 generations. Maison seems... much easier than Subway (this was my first run lol), I think because only you are allowed to use Megas, and for whatever reasons the AI almost always uses set 4 (I feel like Subway had much more variety in movesets). Thank you all for the help!
Basically the same team as GG Unit, but with everyone's speed increased. The added speed on Kanga is really nice, especially to outspeed Gallade, Magmortar, and Typhlosion pre-Mega and Serperior post-Mega (makes battles much quicker). I've never really missed the damage output from Adamant. 177 HP on Gliscor to hit a Poison Heal number + 1 and 129 Speed to outspeed CM Cobalion and Mienshao, and also guarantees all Terrakion will be slower after a bulldoze. This makes it safer to PP waste its Stone Edges. 86 Speed on Chansey is to outspeed Walrein and get a sub up before it can use an OHKO move, also sneakily helpful against some slower offensive Pokemon. For example, Carracosta 4 even after its Weakness Policy boosts will not use Aqua Jet on Chansey because the AI assumes its slower, but she outspeeds >:)
I think I will stop my Battle Maison run here, I only wanted to get the Starf Berry to say I got it in 3 generations. Maison seems... much easier than Subway (this was my first run lol), I think because only you are allowed to use Megas, and for whatever reasons the AI almost always uses set 4 (I feel like Subway had much more variety in movesets). Thank you all for the help!
That's a cool look at Jolly Kanga! I remember a key benchmark with Adamant is that you can Power-up Punch and then Sucker Punch to 100% KO Aerodactyl, but even if you were to fall short there, a faster Gliscor with Bulldoze is likely to stall out the rest of the Stone Edges and be less likely to totally forfeit momentum than Earthquake Gliscor. That maybe does have a legit niche in terms of 'fastest to 200' but for Gliscor I would still use Double Team instead of Toxic (which would probably still make you win faster on average since KOing stuff with Toxic is not that fast and Gliscor can sweep more teams when it can get +6 evasion and a Sub against its good matchups).
I'm really out on Toxic as a battle facilities move where a 90% move that puts something 'on a timer' (aka still gives it multiple turns to crit/status/land a OHKO move while also not beating Rest users) is simultaneously not that fast of a way to defeat stuff and not nearly as reliable as using another status move to make Chansey/Gliscor even more likely to switch in and 3-0 teams than they already were. Like even if you were against using evasion moves on two mons (which I don't think is a big deal at all when the opponent isn't switching out on you and the two users complement themselves pretty well defensively), I could see Harden or Baton Pass or Swords Dance being more useful than Toxic on Gliscor.