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Double Battle Metagame.

False said:
The number of Skill Swap teams I've seen in the thread aren't really using Skill Swap to its best potential, I think. Instead of concentrating on spending three agonizing turns setting up something, it'd be so much better to just sabotage your opponents plan.

Think about it this way; a number of times, in order to make sure two pokemon don't hurt each other with attacks, abilities are used, like in the Kingdra/Toxicroak combo from earlier in the thread. But if you skill swap with Toxicroak, he goes from being almost invulnerable to getting screwed over by the opponent. A slightly less specific situation is pairing up an Earthquake user with someone with Levitate, or Discharge and Electivire.
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Actually that reminds me of a battle I had a while ago with BBEXP who has a very good Skill Swap Team. Like you had said, using Skill Swap to your advantage can be very beneficial, even if it is not on your own team. It can also catch your opponent off guard, as Doubles is more dependent on abilities than singles is, most of the time (something I base a lot of my teams on). Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBgrxzkY2xk
As you can see, my plan was horribly ruined when Skill Swap reared its ugly head.

The next time we battled, I came back with my own Skill Swap, Sand Storm...Trick Room Team. Yeah, somehow I crammed all of those effects in and made it work @_@:
1st Half: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUUc-vidw5M
2nd Part: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqEwsXsZmlQ

I'll look froward to facing you in the next round, PBB / Shinryu, hopefully it will be a good match like these are :P
 
latios315 said:
I think i heard some time that if you use skill swap to gain pure power it is only a 1.5x boost instead of a 2x boost.
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No, it's always x2.

The advantage of using Skill Swap instead of Swords Dance is that you have your ally Skill Swap while you either attack or stat up. You could get +2 Attack and double it (the equivalent increase in Attack of using Belly Drum) in the same turn.

POKEMONBATTLEBRAIN said:
Also, a big question I have regarding probability: how does it work exactly?
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A move with 50% accuracy will hit 50% of the time. The only way to change this number is to alter the move's accuracy or make it auto-hit like with No Guard. Your personal anecdotes are irrelevant. Go use Zap Cannon 100 times, and it will, with high probability, be around 50 hits. You can't talk about "this one time I used a move and it missed 3 times!". That's such a small sample size.
 
Obi said:
No, it's always x2.
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So this has been proven and thus is the reason why Smogon's entry for it does not say otherwise?

Anyway, thank you for clarification!

Oh, and here's a good question: Why is it that Light Screen's effect in Doubles causes special damage to only be reduced to 2/3 (and is ignored completely during a critical hit) whereas Barrier, apparently, always halves physical damage (no matter what)? It just seems odd...
 
Vhind said:
So this has been proven and thus is the reason why Smogon's entry for it does not say otherwise?

Anyway, thank you for clarification!

Oh, and here's a good question: Why is it that Light Screen's effect in Doubles causes special damage to only be reduced to 2/3 (and is ignored completely during a critical hit) whereas Barrier, apparently, always halves physical damage (no matter what)? It just seems odd...
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I'm sure Obi will chime in as to whether or not it's been tested but if you think about it, it just doesn't make sense for an ability to change just because it's on another Pokemon. That's not how abilities work, they're constant. Wonder Guard still works the same way when Porygon-2 traces it, being immune to all but his weaknesses.

Anyway, Barrier always halves physical damages because it doubles the Defense of ONLY the user, much like a defensive Swords Dance. This is as opposed to Reflect and Light Screen which increase the Def and Sp Def of both Pokemon by 33% for 5 turns.
 
Vhind said:
But I don't think that would happen...Skill Swapping shouldn't affect the mechanics of an ability.
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Yeah, I've already thought about it on the previous page. lol.

Ahaha, I definitely forgot all about Reflect being the Physical version of Light Screen. I was thinking Barrier was. My bad.
:p
 
Obi said:
The advantage of using Skill Swap instead of Swords Dance is that you have your ally Skill Swap while you either attack or stat up. You could get +2 Attack and double it (the equivalent increase in Attack of using Belly Drum) in the same turn.
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actually it couldn't work like without multiple turns of set up because neither azumarill or medicham gets skill swap
 
Hmm yeah I guess I was thinking of some Skill Swap chain with something like Slaking at the end.
 
Skill Swap's not quite that reliable in doubles... your opponent can pull your Skill Swap with Follow Me and really mess you up if you don't see it coming >.< but yeah Skill Swapping becomes very interesting when you use random mechanics of the game.
 
Why not? Explosions are fun lol, though I prefer my own Exploding Lucario over anything else ._. now if I could only get a shiny Lucario from all these Egg SRings..., you'd have a problem if your opponent also runs a Fake Outter, mainly because Medicham has like 80ish base speed.
 
hhjj said:
how about Skill Swap Azelf with Focus Sash, and Have your Medicham use Fake-out.


Medicham Fake-outs 1 foe, while Focus Sash protects Azelf from dieing incase the other foe targets Azelf.

Azelf Skill swaps successfully without fearing death, and Medicham has already used Fake-out by the time it loses Pure Power.

Azlef then Explodes the next turn as you switch in a Ghost user. Perhaps:


Azelf: Focus Sash
Trait: Levitate

Skill Swap
Explosion
Zen headbutt
Filler

Zen Headbutt incase you want to save Explosion for later... And sweep with Physical STAB.
Keep in mind Azelf has 125 Base Attack, double that with Skill Swap and that's like using Swords Dance... You get the picture.

(Stronger than a Lickilicky's Choice Banded Explosion).

Medicham: Life Orb
Trait: Pure Power

Fake-out
Psycho Cutter
Hi Jump Kick
Filler
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The problem I have with this is that on the turn that azelf is using skill swap to gain pure power you could instead have a lickilicky use swords dance, or maybe even belly drum, to get a much more powerful explosion without crippling your partner.

Of course you wouldn't be as fast as azelf but i do think it is a little bit much set up especially considering if your opponent switches in a ghost, or leads with one, the best you can get is fainting one of your opponents Pokemon by sacrificing one of yours, hardly a trade worth setting up for.
 
that's... very limiting..., I mean I almost went with a Choice Band Fake Out... on Medicham but went against it.. btw Fake Out doesn't save you from Sableye, and... if it's the point of your team... why blow it up... lol, that defeats the purpose of it being the center of your team if it's dead on turn two..., you're not including Follow Me users for Lickilicky and Snorlax has a more volatile attack without the set up, note Follow Me can and will disrupt Skill Swap
 
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Breavile Combo

Breloom @ Life Orb
Poison Heal
Adamant
44 HP, 252 Atk, 212 Spe
Fake Out
Spore
Focus Punch
Seed Bomb

Weavile @ Focus Sash
Pressure
Jolly
40 HP, 252 Atk, 216 Spe
Toxic
Night Slash
Ice Punch
Aerial Ace

It's really a rather simple combination. Breloom Fake Outs a threat on the first turn and Weavile follows up by hitting Breloom with Toxic. In the next turn Weavile attacks with anything viable and Breloom Spores. Then they proceed to sweep away. Focus Sash lets Weavile always get off a Toxic and, if the opponent is slower, another offensive move. Poison Heal gives Breloom a bit of healing and disables the Life Orb's penalty. Life Orb gives Breloom extra Attack to take out threats.

I understand Breloom's viability was discussed much earlier in this topic but not elaborated upon. Just about any pokemon can be paired up with Breloom in this fashion, I just liked the irony that this combination displays.
 
lol you really want to look out for Heatwave... well any multitargetting attack for that matter..., Fake Out users faster than Breloom, and Focus Punch might be a bit hard to pull off in doubles
 
Also, what if Toxic somehow misses?
...There goes your method of healing.

I would almost rather see Weavile running Fake Out and Breloom with a Choice Scarf Sporing the other Pokemon.
 
Good spots. Focus Punch is very difficult to pull off in doubles without the proper prediction and Heatwave is a problem. Toxic missing is also a problem but not too big of one. It's only a 15% chance.

Breloom with Choice Scarf would sort of defeat the purpose if all it was going to do was Spore the other pokemon. Sure sleeping both of your opponent's starters is nice, but there are much better options for that particular job.

Oh well, it was just a fun little set I decided to try for the irony.
 
Plus Breloom can't even learn Fake Out. :P

If you run the poison orb in stead of life orb, that gives you the ability in effect after the first turn. just fake out anything that threatens breloom.
 
Hm... Wow... That was kind of stupid... Oh, and I know about the Toxic Orb. I used to run an anti-lead Breloom in singles.
 
Here's a combo for Platinum

Rotom-w and Electivire

Electivire @ Focus Sash
Motor Drive
Adamant
Evs: 252 attack 252 speed 6 hp
Thunder Punch
Ice Punch
Cross Chop
Earthquake

Rotom-w @ lefties
Bold
200 sp atk 252 speed 58 hp (not exactly sure but I want it to be bulky)
Discharge
Hydro Pump
Shadow Ball
HP Ice, Grass or fire (still not sure since I can't test this yet)

Simply Rotom-w uses Discharge the first turn activating motor drive on Electivire. Then Electivire sweeps while Rotom-w supplies special attack power and immunity from Electivire's Earthquake.


Also I guess it could work if you switch rotom-w to Zapdos but he doesn't have Hydro Pump.
 
Zerix said:
Breloom with Choice Scarf would sort of defeat the purpose if all it was going to do was Spore the other pokemon. Sure sleeping both of your opponent's starters is nice, but there are much better options for that particular job.

Oh well, it was just a fun little set I decided to try for the irony.
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Oh, and I realize this. I was only commenting on a Sporing Breloom because earlier today I had considered using one...lol.

I suppose the irony was that both were 'opposites?' lol.
 
That's actually pretty good, hhjj. I wouldn't have thought of that.

However, looking at the set hit me: What are we trying to accomplish exactly? lol. I mean, what's the point of using this sets? Just to sleep an opponent and give Breloom healing powers?
 
oooh, i love me some doubles battles. In fact i thought of one last night..

Aerodactyl @ Heat Rock
Hasty- 100 Atk/152 Sp.Atk/ 252 Spe
-Sunny Day
-Heat Wave
-Pursuit
-Rock Slide

and

Victreebel @ BlackSludge
Adamant - 252 Atk/ 252 Spe/ 4 HP
Chlorophyll
-Sub
-SD
-Leaf Blade
-Sucker Punch

Have Aero Sunny while Vic Subs, then procceed to punish with aero and set up with Vic. RockSlide for the fact of flinch and it hit both, anbd the evs give heatwave more power.
 
yeah... You might as well run Skill Swap Blissey and swap Serene Grace onto Aerodactyl for 60% Flinch rate on both opponents, not including the accuracy of Rock Slide...
 
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