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Aw crap, I just wrapped up a "You like battles, too!" run with Durant/Cloyster/Gliscor but accidentally closed the tab where I was doing a writeup for the team. I'll keep it on the briefer side for now and maybe go back and edit later. Here's a video where I actually got some footage of the elusive Janitor, and there are a few more of this team on that channel.
Durant and Gliscor are the same as before. The Cloyster:
@ Leftovers
Adamant, 156 HP, 252 Atk, 92 Def, 10 Sp. Def (suboptimal spread - I bred this Cloyster while I was still rusty on RNG and was just breeding it the 'old-fashioned' way with a Ditto I had RNGed however many years ago until I got one with good enough stats. This has a low Speed IV and if you had one with perfect stats it would be wise to speed creep a little. I actually lost streaks of 750 and 816 where I mostly screwed up but still got both battles to a position where a 31 Speed IV Cloyster would have 100% won lol)
- Sub
- Protect
- Shell Smash
- Icicle Spear
Boosts super fast and does a lot of damage (+4 Cloyster Spear does the same as +6 Dragonite Dragon Claw to neutral targets). Cloyster can do well with this in any facility where Leftovers are available for it, but
1) perma Sandstream
2) no Infiltrator/sound moves for stuff like Chandelure/Volcarona to bypass Subs
3) being a turn 1 switch in to Weavile Fake Out
4) crits hitting hard enough to give you a ~19% chance of OHKOing like a Registeel or Aggron
makes Sub/Lefties stand out even more compared to 2nd attack/Sash here IMO. Compared to the team with Glalie, some bulky Ice/Waters such as QC Dewgong (if this is the lead and uses Fake Out turn 1, switch to Gliscor and sac it so Dewgong will need to QC and crit Durant to prevent Entrainment rather than just QC) and PerishTrap Lapras are more annoying. Other heavy Ice resists such as OHKO Walrein can still be PP stalled, so it's not that bad.
I'm sitting on 1008 straight and going forward I'm going to be subbing this into Cloyster's spot:
Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Clear Body
Calm
172 HP, 28 Def, 252 SpA, 4 SpD, 52 Spe
- Sub
- Protect
- Acupressure
- Scald
The bulk lets its Sub take a non-Air Slash move from any Speed Boost Yanmega that manages to KO Durant and an Iron Head from Cobalion when both are equal in Attack/Defense boosts.
I talked about a similar team a while ago, and suggested Hail-setter + Tailwind-setter + Nidoking + Kartana for a later generation. Here, in the final team I have Abomasnow, Whimsicott, Rotom-F and Machamp. First I tried similar sets, but with Metagross instead of Machamp, because Metagross. It worked well, that is until you notice that every random Froslass makes you lose. Maybe some of you who tried to build a Hail team also gave up, when on top of all the other problems of Hail-teams, one also has to deal with all time active Snow Veil. I looked for what can hit Ice types, and well, here comes No Guard Machamp. I played it with Close Combat, and the other team members also had different sets: Whimsi had Endeavor and not yet Fake Tears, and Rotom did not have Electro Ball. I managed to get to shaky 89 wins. I settled for a while, but then tried again, with the now in hindsight obvious changes, Fake Tears, Electro Ball and Dynamic Punch. The shakiness vanished, and I got first try to 196! Fake Tears of course is all powerful, but also Dynamic Punch, which does not corrupt Machamps bulk was crucial (I for example lost the previous streak because Hippowdon could KO because of this). Oh, and I replaced Machamps Rockslide for EQ, which was way better. Bullet Punch may be a thing, I only did not have it because I needed to breed, but I also don’t know what to replace. Anyways, this was the team, and it surpassed all my expectations by far! Yeah, Hail is viable…
Usual play is Protect + Tailwind, let the enemy eat a round of Hail, then sweep with Blizzard + Fake Tears. Often the enemy just gets overwhelmed, and if problems occur Machamp comes in and solves them. Switching almost never is an option due to a lack of resistances, but it also is not necessary most of the time. Really, I don’t know if I even switched more than 10 times in the whole run. Sometimes turn 1 attacks of Abomasnow are crucial, especially in the face of Fake Out or Dusknoir, see threats below. Most of the time you just click Blizzard over and over. Sometimes though you need to make careful decisions and plan 2 or 3 turns ahead, about what to KO when, what to hit with Fake Tears, looking when it gets into KO range by Hail damage etc. Encore and Hail go nicely hand in hand anyways. Oh, and the AI is so dumb. Also it strongly prefers to attack Abomasnow, because aside from ice moves, it is weaker in all defenses than Whimsi. Whimsi has strange EVs, I took the one I had, but it worked well. (The IVs of the four are poor in general lol, only 2 or 3 stats are on 31)
The team has a superb offensive coverage, STAB Ice + Electric, then STAB Fighting, every mon has a 100+ BP STAB. Most (pseudo) legendaries are weak to some of this. As poor and monotone the defensive typing of the team is, as good is its offense. Due to Encore and Dynamic Punch, any stall attempt usually is but a joke. And evasion is bypassed that well by almost no other team in this gen.
Single most biggest threat: Fake Out. Fake Out is the single most biggest threat. Especially in turn 1, but also sometimes when it comes from the back. Below are some battles, and the streak ended by paranoia from Fake Out. Fake Out turn 1 on Whimsi + Whimsi getting killed probably is the worst case scenario, and it happened like 2 times. Some mons always seem to go for Whimsi, like Kangaskhan. Fake Out is so scary, that I started pondering about removing one of Whimsis unreplacable moves for Protect…
Ice Resists: Often everything just gets worn down. Against waters Abomasnow stays around forever. Many Steels and Fires though survive Hail damage + Fake Tears + Blizzard, and obviously cause pain in return. Still, often they just get overwhelmed, also because Abomasnow has a Sash. And Machamp shines against many of them, as he can OHKO most fire types and many steels, especially with the omnipresent chip damage this team deals. Some fire types like Magmortar are OHKOed by Hail + EQ. Escavalier for instance takes 85% from Electro Ball under Tailwind, so it’s just a matter of chip, which you want to deal anyways. Even facing multiple ice resists, one usually can overwhelm them. And of course against ice types and their raised evasion Machamp also shines – it was the reason I considered it in the first place. Of course smart protecting also is a thing. And probably the preference of the AI to go for Abomasnow over Whimsi does also a lot. I did not plan it, but Whimsi had slightly higher defenses and HP than Abo, and it may be crucial.
Enemy weather, most notably sand: Can be bad. If it is set manually, Encore may be a thing, and then resetting Hail at the appropriate time. Often I just manually reset by using Abos Hail. The most problematic scenarios occurred, when Sand came again from the back and Abomasnow cannot reset Hail for some reason (for instance due to not living anymore). Enjoy battle 118 below.
Conkeldurr/Priority: Having a 1HP Abomasnow sitting in front of priority of course is inconvenient, and Conkeldurr somehow seems to be the most notorious, probably because of its bulk. While switching almost never is an option, one can play around it a bit, and soften things with Fake Tears.
Trickroom: The usual play is to Encore the TR in the second turn, which is usually an easy win then. That may fail, if Whimsi dies in turn1, which I think never happened, or if Dusknoir4 is the setter. This is stressful, because it may go with Shadow Sneak in the next turn, before Whimsi can Encore it into TR. So often the best play is Fake Tears + Blizzard, to get some damage rolling. Then Dusknoir usually goes for something else than Shadow Sneak in turn 2, and Whimsi can force it to neuter TR. I had many battles where TR went up, and the majority is harmless.
Dusknoir and Eelektross
Blizzard + Fake Tears Dusknoir. Flamethrower against Abomasnow, TR.
Probably Dusknoir goes for priority because Abo has 1HP, so I decide to attack it with Whimsi and not Encore it. Indeed they double on Abo, who protects, Grass Knot Dusknoir. Dusknoir down.
Arcanine in.
Protect, but failed, Extremespeed finishes it. Grass Knot Eelektross, Whimsi tanks Flamethrower.
Machamp in.
Try Fake Tears against Eel, but Extremespeed finishes Whimsi first. Flamethrower against Machamp. Machamp SE kills Arcanine.
Rotom in, Pinsir in.
Eel Flamethrower Rotom, burn. Machamp kills Pinsir with SE, Rotom kills Eel with Blizzard. Even with a crit on Rotom I would have won. But that was stressful.
Clerk Bank, uff:
I don't know the beginning anymore, but I already had 3vs2 + Tailwind. So it's Whimsi + Rotom, and in comes... Tyranitar3 and Gliscor3! Possible Sand Veil… Gliscor can OHKO everything of me, and I can hardly hit it aside from Blizzard. But it’s my best bet and I try it. It hits Tyranitar (did not matter), but fails on Gliscor, uff. Whimsi Grassknot on Gliscor crit. Tyranitar hits SE, kills Rotom, Gliscor kills Whimsi, Machamp in. Tailwind out, Machamp slower than Tyranitar but faster than Gliscor. Now only a confusion miracle will safe me. Indeed: Tar EQ, Machamp to 2/3HP, Machamp Dynamic Punch Gliscor, Glis hits itself! Tar EQ, Dynamic Punch kills Tar, Gliscor hits itself, Gliscor dies!
Bad IVs mattered, Whimsi could have survived Aerial Ace from Gliscor e.g. But I absolutely should have absolutely lost that.
Cresselia, Moltres.
Protect + Tailwind. Air Slash, Swagger in Abo.
Fake Tears Moltres + Blizzard. Should have maybe went for Encore on Moltres. It survives, and Heatwave + Icy Wind kills both of mine.
Rotom + Machamp in.
Cannot kill Cresselia, and do not want to take Icy Wind. Double Protect, Moltres killed by Hail.
In comes Tornadus.
Tornadus3 may survive Blizzard, so I double on him. Cresselia goes for HH, so easy take down. Landorus in. Double Protect again because Hail finishes Cresse. OHKO Lando next turn.
Regirock, Regice
Troublesome, because of spread moves, and bulky. Tailwind for backrow needed, but I need to attack, or I will get traded down because I cannot KO in the following turn. Depends much on the sets what they will survive…
Gigadrain on Regirock, Tailwind. Rockslide, Crit on Abo (would have survived the following turn), Thunderwave on Abo.
Grass Knot kills Regirock, Regice kills both of mine.
Rotom and Machamp in, Regigigas comes in.
Rotom Blizzard, freezes Regigigas, Machamp OHKOs Regice with Dynamic Punch.
Zapdos in, clean up.
Charizard-Scarf, Kangaskhan, scariest battle.
Oh oh.
Blizzard, because Fake Out, and indeed it Fake Outs Whimsi, and Charizard kills with Heat Wave, Abo 1 HP, no Tailwind.
Machamp in (Rotom might die full HP to Heat Wave).
Protect with Abo, Heat Wave, burns Machamp, Kang Double Edge into Abo, Machamp kills Charizard.
In comes Serperior. Abo 1HP, Machamp burned 48 HP. Both are outsped and OHKOed by both enemies. Reasoning: If I protect one of mine (Machamp because it did not protect the previous turn), then Rotom will not be double targeted the following turn. So I protect Machamp, who will survive with 20 HP after burn and hail. And… both attacks go into Machamp and I land Blizzard, which does 70% to Serperior, freezes it and kills Kang! What a turn of events lol. The freeze did not matter so much, but the stupid AI
In comes Drifblim. Battle is over because Rotom outspeeds Serperior, survives a crit from Drifblim and OHKOs both, but for the record: Drifblim could outspeed and kill both with Icy Wind, but kills Machamp with Shadow Ball. Serperior frozen, Abo kills it with Blizzard, and a sliver, I kill it next turn.
Machamp with Bullet Punch would maybe have provided more options…
Battle 197, Vanilluxe and Beartic
Normal Protect + Tailwind. Vanilluxe Icebeam into Protect, Beartic hits Whimsi with Icy Wind.
Next, Fake Tears into Vanilluxe, then Blizzard, both opponents at around 75%. Beartic kills Whimsi, Vanilluxe uses Icebeam to bring Abomasnow a little below half.
Machamp in. Abomasnow Giga Drain against Vanilluxe, now at 75% again, Machamp OHKOs Beartic. Vanilluxe goes for Icebeam, Abomasnow at 33 HP.
In comes Jynx… and I get slightly nervous, because of – Fake Out! And I, smart as I am, want to outstall this potential Fake Out turn and go for double Protect, as I count how many moves Abomasnow used, and I find, that I still have a Tailwind turn left after, and probably easy game from there… However that is not true, Tailwind peters out, and I see, that I overlooked that I already used Gigadrain. From here it’s basically over, if the AI plays smart. Well Jynx didn’t even go for Fake Out against Machamp before.. And it does not kill Machamp with Psychic, but goes for Blizzard. It kills Abomasnow, but worse, it freezes Machamp. It stays frozen and gets killed by Vanilluxe. Rotom comes in. Maybe there was even a chance to win, because Jynx goes for Lovely Kiss and Vanilluxe for Taunt. However it hits, and although Rotom has an early wake up, it gets killed. Last was Glaceon.
Very avoidable loss.. I had more difficult battles before, where the chance of winning and making the right calls was way slimmer, but that’s how it goes. Proud of having made a Hail team come that far. I don’t know if there are other viable Hail teams possible in this gen, as I think that something like Machamp/Golurk with No Guard is mandatory. TR + Hail of course could work, too.
Other than on my previous posts, now I finally deliver proofs, have a look on YouTube:
Also for previous streaks there are some battles.
I am kinda glad the streak is over, as to how it always occupies my mind. It's the personal best with a team of my own, so I'm happy about that. Thanks for reading!
I talked about a similar team a while ago, and suggested Hail-setter + Tailwind-setter + Nidoking + Kartana for a later generation. Here, in the final team I have Abomasnow, Whimsicott, Rotom-F and Machamp. First I tried similar sets, but with Metagross instead of Machamp, because Metagross. It worked well, that is until you notice that every random Froslass makes you lose. Maybe some of you who tried to build a Hail team also gave up, when on top of all the other problems of Hail-teams, one also has to deal with all time active Snow Veil. I looked for what can hit Ice types, and well, here comes No Guard Machamp. I played it with Close Combat, and the other team members also had different sets: Whimsi had Endeavor and not yet Fake Tears, and Rotom did not have Electro Ball. I managed to get to shaky 89 wins. I settled for a while, but then tried again, with the now in hindsight obvious changes, Fake Tears, Electro Ball and Dynamic Punch. The shakiness vanished, and I got first try to 196! Fake Tears of course is all powerful, but also Dynamic Punch, which does not corrupt Machamps bulk was crucial (I for example lost the previous streak because Hippowdon could KO because of this). Oh, and I replaced Machamps Rockslide for EQ, which was way better. Bullet Punch may be a thing, I only did not have it because I needed to breed, but I also don’t know what to replace. Anyways, this was the team, and it surpassed all my expectations by far! Yeah, Hail is viable…
Usual play is Protect + Tailwind, let the enemy eat a round of Hail, then sweep with Blizzard + Fake Tears. Often the enemy just gets overwhelmed, and if problems occur Machamp comes in and solves them. Switching almost never is an option due to a lack of resistances, but it also is not necessary most of the time. Really, I don’t know if I even switched more than 10 times in the whole run. Sometimes turn 1 attacks of Abomasnow are crucial, especially in the face of Fake Out or Dusknoir, see threats below. Most of the time you just click Blizzard over and over. Sometimes though you need to make careful decisions and plan 2 or 3 turns ahead, about what to KO when, what to hit with Fake Tears, looking when it gets into KO range by Hail damage etc. Encore and Hail go nicely hand in hand anyways. Oh, and the AI is so dumb. Also it strongly prefers to attack Abomasnow, because aside from ice moves, it is weaker in all defenses than Whimsi. Whimsi has strange EVs, I took the one I had, but it worked well. (The IVs of the four are poor in general lol, only 2 or 3 stats are on 31)
The team has a great offensive coverage, STAB Ice + Electric, then STAB Fighting, every mon has a 100+ BP STAB. Most (pseudo) legendaries are weak to some of this. As poor and monotone the defensive typing of the team is, as good is its offense. Also evasion is bypassed that well by almost no other team in this gen.
Single most biggest threat: Fake Out. Fake Out is the single most biggest threat. Especially in turn 1, but also sometimes when it comes from the back. Below are some battles, and the streak ended by paranoia from Fake Out. Fake Out turn 1 on Whimsi + Whimsi getting killed probably is the worst case scenario, and it happened like 2 times. Some mons always seem to go for Whimsi, like Kangaskhan. Fake Out is so scary, that I started pondering about removing one of Whimsis unreplacable moves for Protect…
Ice Resists: Often everything just gets worn down. Against waters Abomasnow stays around forever. Many Steels and Fires though survive Hail damage + Fake Tears + Blizzard, and obviously cause pain in return. Still, often they just get overwhelmed, also because Abomasnow has a Sash. And Machamp shines against many of them, as he can OHKO most fire types and many steels, especially with the omnipresent chip damage this team deals. Some fire types like Magmortar are OHKOed by Hail + Blizzard + EQ. Escavalier for instance takes 85% from Electro Ball under Tailwind, so it’s just a matter of chip, which you want to deal anyways. Even facing multiple ice resists, one usually can overwhelm them. And of course against ice types and their raised evasion Machamp also shines – it was the reason I considered it in the first place. Of course smart protecting also is a thing. And probably the preference of the AI to go for Abomasnow over Whimsi does also a lot. I did not plan it, but Whimsi had slightly higher defenses and HP than Abo, and it may be crucial.
Enemy weather, most notably sand: Can be bad. If it is set manually, Encore may be a thing, and then resetting Hail at the appropriate time. Often I just manually reset by using Abos Hail. The most problematic scenarios occurred, when Sand came again from the back and Abomasnow cannot reset Hail for some reason (for instance due to not living anymore). Enjoy battle 118 below.
Conkeldurr/Priority: Having a 1HP Abomasnow sitting in front of priority of course is inconvenient, and Conkeldurr somehow seems to be the most notorious, probably because of its bulk. While switching almost never is an option, one can play around it a bit, and soften things with Fake Tears.
Trickroom: The usual play is to Encore the TR in the second turn, which is usually an easy win then. That may fail, if Whimsi dies in turn1, which I think never happened, or if Dusknoir4 is the setter. This is stressful, because it may go with Shadow Sneak in the next turn, before Whimsi can Encore it into TR. So often the best play is Fake Tears + Blizzard, to get some damage rolling. Then Dusknoir usually goes for something else than Shadow Sneak in turn 2, and Whimsi can force it to neuter TR. I had many battles where TR went up, and the majority is harmless.
Dusknoir and Eelektross
Blizzard + Fake Tears Dusknoir. Flamethrower against Abomasnow, TR.
Probably Dusknoir goes for priority because Abo has 1HP, so I decide to attack it with Whimsi and not Encore it. Indeed they double on Abo, who protects, Grass Knot Dusknoir. Dusknoir down.
Arcanine in.
Protect, but failed, Extremespeed finishes it. Grass Knot Eelektross, Whimsi tanks Flamethrower.
Machamp in.
Try Fake Tears against Eel, but Extremespeed finishes Whimsi first. Flamethrower against Machamp. Machamp SE kills Arcanine.
Rotom in, Pinsir in.
Eel Flamethrower Rotom, burn. Machamp kills Pinsir with SE, Rotom kills Eel with Blizzard. Even with a crit on Rotom I would have won. But that was stressful.
Clerk Bank, uff:
I don't know the beginning anymore, but I already had 3vs2 + Tailwind. So it's Whimsi + Rotom, and in comes... Tyranitar3 and Gliscor3! Possible Sand Veil… Gliscor can OHKO everything of me, and I can hardly hit it aside from Blizzard. But it’s my best bet and I try it. It hits Tyranitar (did not matter), but fails on Gliscor, uff. Whimsi Grassknot on Gliscor crit. Tyranitar hits SE, kills Rotom, Gliscor kills Whimsi, Machamp in. Tailwind out, Machamp slower than Tyranitar but faster than Gliscor. Now only a confusion miracle will safe me. Indeed: Tar EQ, Machamp to 2/3HP, Machamp Dynamic Punch Gliscor, Glis hits itself! Tar EQ, Dynamic Punch kills Tar, Gliscor hits itself, Gliscor dies!
Bad IVs mattered, Whimsi could have survived Aerial Ace from Gliscor e.g. But I absolutely should have absolutely lost that.
Cresselia, Moltres.
Protect + Tailwind. Air Slash, Swagger in Abo.
Fake Tears Moltres + Blizzard. Should have maybe went for Encore on Moltres. It survives, and Heatwave + Icy Wind kills both of mine.
Rotom + Machamp in.
Cannot kill Cresselia, and do not want to take Icy Wind. Double Protect, Moltres killed by Hail.
In comes Tornadus.
Tornadus3 may survive Blizzard, so I double on him. Cresselia goes for HH, so easy take down. Landorus in. Double Protect again because Hail finishes Cresse. OHKO Lando next turn.
Regirock, Regice
Troublesome, because of spread moves, and bulky. Tailwind for backrow needed, but I need to attack, or I will get traded down because I cannot KO in the following turn. Depends much on the sets what they will survive…
Gigadrain on Regirock, Tailwind. Rockslide, Crit on Abo (would have survived the following turn), Thunderwave on Abo.
Grass Knot kills Regirock, Regice kills both of mine.
Rotom and Machamp in, Regigigas comes in.
Rotom Blizzard, freezes Regigigas, Machamp OHKOs Regice with Dynamic Punch.
Zapdos in, clean up.
Charizard-Scarf, Kangaskhan, scariest battle.
Oh oh.
Blizzard, because Fake Out, and indeed it Fake Outs Whimsi, and Charizard kills with Heat Wave, Abo 1 HP, no Tailwind.
Machamp in (Rotom might die full HP to Heat Wave).
Protect with Abo, Heat Wave, burns Machamp, Kang Double Edge into Abo, Machamp kills Charizard.
In comes Serperior. Abo 1HP, Machamp burned 48 HP. Both are outsped and OHKOed by both enemies. Reasoning: If I protect one of mine (Machamp because it did not protect the previous turn), then Rotom will not be double targeted the following turn. So I protect Machamp, who will survive with 20 HP after burn and hail. And… both attacks go into Machamp and I land Blizzard, which does 70% to Serperior, freezes it and kills Kang! What a turn of events lol. The freeze did not matter so much, but the stupid AI
In comes Drifblim. Battle is over because Rotom outspeeds Serperior, survives a crit from Drifblim and OHKOs both, but for the record: Drifblim could outspeed and kill both with Icy Wind, but kills Machamp with Shadow Ball. Serperior frozen, Abo kills it with Blizzard, and a sliver, I kill it next turn.
Machamp with Bullet Punch would maybe have provided more options…
Battle 197, Vanilluxe and Beartic
Normal Protect + Tailwind. Vanilluxe Icebeam into Protect, Beartic hits Whimsi with Icy Wind.
Next, Fake Tears into Vanilluxe, then Blizzard, both opponents at around 75%. Beartic kills Whimsi, Vanilluxe uses Icebeam to bring Abomasnow a little below half.
Machamp in. Abomasnow Giga Drain against Vanilluxe, now at 75% again, Machamp OHKOs Beartic. Vanilluxe goes for Icebeam, Abomasnow at 33 HP.
In comes Jynx… and I get slightly nervous, because of – Fake Out! And I, smart as I am, want to outstall this potential Fake Out turn and go for double Protect, as I count how many moves Abomasnow used, and I find, that I still have a Tailwind turn left after, and probably easy game from there… However that is not true, Tailwind peters out, and I see, that I overlooked that I already used Gigadrain. From here it’s basically over, if the AI plays smart. Well Jynx didn’t even go for Fake Out against Machamp before.. And it does not kill Machamp with Psychic, but goes for Blizzard. It kills Abomasnow, but worse, it freezes Machamp. It stays frozen and gets killed by Vanilluxe. Rotom comes in. Maybe there was even a chance to win, because Jynx goes for Lovely Kiss and Vanilluxe for Taunt. However it hits, and although Rotom has an early wake up, it gets killed. Last was Glaceon.
Very avoidable loss.. I had more difficult battles before, where the chance of winning and making the right calls was way slimmer, but that’s how it goes. Proud of having made a Hail team come that far. I don’t know if there are other viable Hail teams possible in this gen, as I think that something like Machamp/Golurk with No Guard is mandatory. TR + Hail of course could work, too.
Other than on my previous posts, now I finally deliver proofs, have a look on YouTube:
Also for previous streaks there are some battles.
I am kinda glad the streak is over, as to how it always occupies my mind. It's the personal best with a team of my own, so I'm happy about that. Thanks for reading!
One interesting thing to try on these kind of teams would be Cottonee over Whimsicott. I'm not sure which things Grass Knot is most often targeting, but max Sp. Atk Cottonee hits 97, which is probably at least comparable to what your Whimsicott has with no EV investment and likely not a perfect IV either. Especially if you go for low defensive IVs on Cottonee, you would probably bait Fake Out and even some Trick Room users into just going for the OHKO with a different attack. The lack of bulk not only works for baiting attacks, but there are probably certain situations (like in the loss) where it would be better for the Tailwind setter to faint immediately after using it to give the dedicated attackers more turns.
It's still a bit awkward with Abomasnow since Cottonee with a Sash would bait even more attacks and stuff that can OHKO Abomasnow could still go for it, but maybe you could have some other spread move special attacker like Eruption Entei (obviously great against Snow Veil users/Steels) leading with Cottonee and then Life Orb/Specs/whatever Abomasnow in the back to actually have some good switch-in potential on Ground/Water attacks aimed at Entei. I guess you could say that makes it less of a Hail team, but you might have the option of another Blizzard user instead of Machamp in the back row to take advantage of possible Fake Tears drops. Machamp is hard to turn down because the combo of Fighting + Ice as well as the confusion and possible freezes is pretty cool - and it handles Tyranitar - but it could be possible to defensively handle Snow Cloak users with a lefties Sub/Protect/Blizzard/x Articuno (or Ice Body Walrein/Vanilluxe), especially with an Eruption user up front.
With my team I have gotten past the old record of 1149 or whatever it was (1180 as of right now), so it's nice to know that wasn't a fixed point that would always cause my game to freeze. Tentacruel has been very solid, but I'm not going to make any huge pronouncements about it considering I've done fewer than 200 battles and its teammates are obviously solid enough to win plenty of battles on their own.
- I'm definitely fine with Clear Body as an ability. In yet another chapter of CPU hilarity with speed-reducing moves, when it's faster than the opponent Tentacruel can rack up Acupressure boosts unsubbed against something like Froslass that will repeatedly Icy Wind it despite no speed reduction. As with Drapion when I used it in the Maison, there are so few opportunities for a non-Truant opponent to land an attack on you that
- the 120 base Sp. Def is definitely noticeable in terms of the hits its Sub can tank. As in a Gengar Thunderbolt once failed to break the Sub at just +2 and probably any STAB Psychic that's not Specs Alakazam (which against both Glalie and Tentacruel tends to attempt Trick, fail, and switch out if it comes out 2nd) is not breaking it at +4.
- I actually did have a battle within the first 7 or 14 against a lead Forretress that used Toxic Spikes turn 1. I did set up Tentacruel until Forry exploded and swept from there, but Gliscor would have easily done so as well. In a buzzkill kind of way it might even be more prudent to set Gliscor up since you can 100% get +6 evasion while only having to use 1 Sub and 1 Protect, while still having the opportunity to bring Durant and Tentacruel back in, whereas Tentacruel is in a great position but a little bit more at the mercy of luck in what boosts it gets from the 10 or so Acupressures.
- Burning Focus Sash Garchomp, which then fails to break your Sub with Earthquake and faints to burn damage is just a chef's kiss of an interaction.
- between Glalie preventing it with Taunt and Cloyster weakening itself to the point of baiting attacks, I didn't fully appreciate how many Pokemon were going to help out Tentacruel with a friendly Rain Dance.
- I probably should replace Durant's X-Scissor with Sandstorm to give Tentacruel more of a 'normal' set-up against Abomasnow leads but have been too lazy to do so, plus when push comes to shove a Tentacruel that is 'only' getting a dozen or so boosts if you Protect every other turn (you'll almost certainly get even more boost since most Abomasnow sets really struggle to do damage to Tentacruel even with a crit) is in all likelihood going to be just fine against the Hail teams where you'd most commonly see an Abomasnow lead.
- I've been playing kind of fast and loose with setting up Tentacruel to see how it compares to Drapion in terms of how many boosts it 'actually' needs. I think this is good practice with Tentacruel anyways where every Acupressure short of 21 you use to KO the lead is another PP you have available to waste against a 2nd/3rd mon with a Water immunity (there is a Poliwrath set that's proven to be a pretty annoying PP waster where it Belly Drums immediately and will use all its Hypnosis PP against even a Subbed Tentacruel before going to Brick Break, so switching out isn't really an option). It's kind of an apples-to-oranges comparison where if Drapion had a beefed-up Knock Off and Steel not resisting Dark in gen 5, it would obviously be amazing as well (and you could still almost certainly get a 1000+ streak with Drapion if you were proactive about switching Gliscor in against a potential Lax Incense Cobalion), but I would say Tentacruel is at least on a similar tier where if you have +2 to speed, the relevant attacking stat, and evasion, you'll be super hard to beat from behind a Sub. There are some Dragon Dancers that resist Water you might need to be concerned about if your Sp. Atk isn't boosted, but those sets are very rare and for everything else you're already pretty bulky on the special side and have evasion/defense boosts plus possible Scald burns to make it hard for a physical attacker to take you down as well.
EDIT: and after typing all that the damn game froze on me again, ending my streak at 1190. I'm done on this game for a while; obviously the hardware is more competition than the actual Subway and if I mess around with it again, I'd just use an emulator.
That is an interesting idea. My first thought to circumvent Fake Out was making Whimsi slower than Abomasnow, and then testing whether that changes the preference of Fake Out. But your idea might be better. Actually, I already considered Cottonee for similar reasons, but for another team. I tried a variation of Peterkos Terrakion Team with which he got 252 wins. Instead of Darmanitan I had Expert-Belt Metagross with Iron Head, EQ, Thunderpunch, Bullet Punch, Latios had Life Orb and Protect, and Whimsicott did have Charm instead of Sunny Day. I made it first try to 138. I faced Dragonite + Gyarados, but QC activates and Superpower kills Terrakion, Beat Up does nothing, Gyarados crits Whimsi with Aqua Tail. I almost fought back, but an Escavalier from the back was hard to beat (well, Peterko knew one needs some Fire for this team). This team was much fun and felt so strong, but 100% KO from QC seemed to weigh too heavy. What I was thinking was, that one can make Whimsi lose so much bulk, that Fire Punch from Dragonite reaches a guaranteed KO, while giving Terrakion a little more bulk, to give it a chance to survive Superpower. I don't know if you can count on Dragonite going consistently for Whimsi, but maybe? Anyways, there I briefly also considered Cottonee, but then found it is way too slow and cannot outspeed Terrakion, which is crucial. But for the Hail-team, this might make the difference. Speed and offense from Whimsi did hardly matter. What may matter though, is that it hardly gets targeted turn one. So maybe even the other way round would be better, making Abomasnow as frail as possible, while playing Whimsi as defensive as possible (like with good IVs. Btw each pokemon had 2 or 3 IVs on 31, not the team in total, in case that was ambiguous). But yeah, as you say, sometimes you want Whimsi to die quickly; but on other occasions you don't. I think only trying really helps.
I agree, Eruption + Whimsi for sure is strong. Jumpman also got a streak of 252 with such a thing. I think in general a strong special spread move + Whimsi with Fake Tears easily can get to 100+ wins. And yes, especially with Blizzard there should be nice synergy, I have not thought about that before. (Also for the Terrakion-Team, I think a 'random' Eruption in the spot of Darmanitan/Metagross may be a thing. But Arcanine with Flareblitz, CC, Extremespeed, Bulldoze/Protect and Sitrus/Muscle Band may be even more charming, and if I give it another shot it will be this one).
Well, in some way or the other the subway always seems to get one with freezes. Maybe instead of doing these superlong streaks you should calculate the probability of you losing? :D And then the expected streak length for the record
Aw crap, I just wrapped up a "You like battles, too!" run with Durant/Cloyster/Gliscor but accidentally closed the tab where I was doing a writeup for the team. I'll keep it on the briefer side for now and maybe go back and edit later. Here's a video where I actually got some footage of the elusive Janitor, and there are a few more of this team on that channel.
Durant and Gliscor are the same as before. The Cloyster:
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Nicely done. I was a big fan of "Yolo" Durant+Cloyster teams for their speed and relative ease of use. I would usually start my streaks with a similar team, but I would usually switch after 200-300 ish battles, as the cost of losing increased. My version lacked the consistency of my "real" teams (for the third slot, I used somewhat wacky stuff), but it seems that a common theme recently has been that adding Gliscor to any team makes it consistent :)
I agree that Rock Blast is a waste of a moveslot for the far superior Substitute. I personally used Icicle Plate instead of Leftovers, which secures OHKOs on 38 additional sets (of 96), and gets a 90%+ range on 6 sets (not counting crit chances). With Gliscor in the picture as a better replacement in the third slot to anything else I can think of (except maybe a well-built Whimsicott?), I wonder about the virtues of these 38 OHKOs against Leftovers. For my purposes (300 quick wins), Leftovers never seemed to make sense against the clean knockouts I didn't need to think about, but I wonder how sand, PP-stalling, and High Jump Kick works on a -3 Cloyster without recovery.
GG Unit said:
One interesting thing to try on these kind of teams would be Cottonee over Whimsicott. I'm not sure which things Grass Knot is most often targeting, but max Sp. Atk Cottonee hits 97, which is probably at least comparable to what your Whimsicott has with no EV investment and likely not a perfect IV either. Especially if you go for low defensive IVs on Cottonee, you would probably bait Fake Out and even some Trick Room users into just going for the OHKO with a different attack. The lack of bulk not only works for baiting attacks, but there are probably certain situations (like in the loss) where it would be better for the Tailwind setter to faint immediately after using it to give the dedicated attackers more turns.
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Nice team Brucolac! I have used the Whimsicott line quite a lot in the past, and I echo a lot of the comments made here. The art of Whimsicott is 50% setting up what you need, and 50% getting out before becoming dead weight. Usually, attempts are ensuring this first part will come at the detriment of the second. A prime example of this is Focus Sash, which you've correctly (imo) swapped for a Lum Berry.
You also correctly highlighted that Fake Out is the #1 threat to Whimsicott, and I sincerely believe that it makes Protect mandatory if your team relies at all on its support to function (we can have the discussion on whether or not this reliance is a fundamental weakness in the first place later). Maybe the attacking move, depending on the other lead, doesn't accomplish all that much, it's up to you to find out.
I am firmly against using Cottonee or using any bulk-reducing cheese in this generation, especially if you're not running Sash. The immortal Berry Juice, Sturdy, lv. 1 Aron is one thing, a Cottonee that's weak to sand/hail and is still lv. 50 is something else. In my experience, trying to make things less bulky to attract hits only accomplishes two things: it encourages spread moves (and more importantly their secondary effects...), and makes you weak to priority. Ice Shard is particularly concerning: no matter how much speed investment you put in Cottonee, it's never going to outspeed a Weavile - which might have Fake Out anyway, forcing you to Protect T1, and die the next without accomplishing anything. One way to combat this is to use a Whimsicott to stay near the top of the +1 priority speed tier, but running minimal bulk while still tanking key (non-crit...) priority moves. That's a step in the right direction, but ask yourself if removing bulk on something so crucial to your team is sensible.
GG Unit said:
EDIT: and after typing all that the damn game froze on me again, ending my streak at 1190. I'm done on this game for a while; obviously the hardware is more competition than the actual Subway and if I mess around with it again, I'd just use an emulator.
I'm so sorry for your losses. It happened to me too; not as far into streaks as you, but I feel the pain. I'm now booting a rom from my 3ds with my original cartridge save file, so I still have that console feel without the uncertainty of the hardware.
My classes are done now, I will have a bit of free time for the next couple weeks, I'll see what I can make happen!
Thanks! Yeah, that sums up also my experiences with Whimsi. Although with the Hail-team, it is less of dead weight, because Spread + Fake Tears is so strong. There of course are situations where Abomasnow + Rotom get a double KO whereas with Whimsi there is no double KO. But Whimsi being alive is better more often, than for example in my other Team with Ursaring + Whimsi, with which I also have a lot of experience.
And yes, I stick very much to Lum Berry, because without it, it easily leads to games where Whimsi is painful dead weight.
For Fake Out: I am not sure if replacing Grass Knot for Protect would be worth it, but it could be and I thought of it. But from other teams, it often sucked having a Mon which cannot do a tiny bit of damage. Next to Machamp Whimsi does nothing then, and even uninvested, Grass Knots damage was very nice. If I try it again, I think I start with Protect and see how it goes.
What you say about Cottonee feels right. I thought some more about shifting status points. I tend to make Whimsi as bulky as possible and Abomasnow frail enough. Maybe making Whimsi slower also may affect the AI. A spread of 252 HP / 20 Def / 236 SDef on Calm Whimsi for example would have helped in the battle against Charizard + Kangaskhan where FO + Heatwave prevented Tailwind. Only a double max roll would have killed Whimsi with Hail damage. On the other hand, Abomasnow can be made frail enough, so that Kang3 can OHKO it. Abomasnow frail + Sash + Protect + worse typing and Whimsi being max bulky feels like it could work best. And Whimsi being slower than Abomasnow also may be a factor. I don't think I'll try this all, but we'll see.
Curious, what teams did you use? Did you post them here?
I agree that Rock Blast is a waste of a moveslot for the far superior Substitute. I personally used Icicle Plate instead of Leftovers, which secures OHKOs on 38 additional sets (of 96), and gets a 90%+ range on 6 sets (not counting crit chances). With Gliscor in the picture as a better replacement in the third slot to anything else I can think of (except maybe a well-built Whimsicott?), I wonder about the virtues of these 38 OHKOs against Leftovers. For my purposes (300 quick wins), Leftovers never seemed to make sense against the clean knockouts I didn't need to think about, but I wonder how sand, PP-stalling, and High Jump Kick works on a -3 Cloyster without recovery.
This is not good. The point of Leftovers is that A) basically anything that avoids a OHKO from +6 Icicle Spear besides QC Dewgong is easily stalled out by Gliscor and B) if something cheeses you with an evasion item, you can get more 100% guaranteed wins by stalling out an additional 10 PP worth of attacks rather than just hoping you don't miss twice in a row.
Nice team Brucolac! I have used the Whimsicott line quite a lot in the past, and I echo a lot of the comments made here. The art of Whimsicott is 50% setting up what you need, and 50% getting out before becoming dead weight. Usually, attempts are ensuring this first part will come at the detriment of the second. A prime example of this is Focus Sash, which you've correctly (imo) swapped for a Lum Berry.
Also not good. As I already mentioned, there is a happy medium where something will dissuade Fake Out by being OHKOed by one of a Fake Out user's other moves but not by Fake Out itself (Kangaskhan Double Edge, Weavile Ice Punch, and so on). You can easily say the same for a lot of status move users where baiting a OHKO with a Cottonee as opposed to Whimsicott leaves a lot more breathing room for a spread move attacker to do damage. Sure you could say it was good to have Lum Berry Whimsicott with Abomasnow, but Abomasnow is a pretty poor lead to use with Prankster Fake Tears since it's too slow to really take advantage of Fake Tears, has lots of weaknesses, and those weaknesses are such that a Focus Sash can easily be nullified by relatively common things like a fire move burning or a Rock Slide flinching. Like duh, a Cottonee is worse than level 1 Aron, but it's equally obvious that the doubles record in gen 5 is a lot lower than it is in generations where you can use level 1 Pokemon.
My classes are done now, I will have a bit of free time for the next couple weeks, I'll see what I can make happen!
It is honestly crazy to me that you wrote this stupid and pointlessly aggressive parting shot about someone "acting as though they were smarter than you" right after delivering this ridiculously pompous post. The validity of your points aside, a cheap shot like this is a surefire way to assure that people are going to be less receptive to whatever you do have to say. After your last few posts that actually felt reasonable, informative, and friendly (or at least polite), this was a complete and utter disappointment.
Also, unless I missed something, didn't Meuhforever state that they used that Cloyster set for early streak rushes, rather than for long streak attempts? Is your first paragraph just completely missing the context that the set was used in?
