Featured Playstyle #2: Hyper Offense

[skylight]

pls talk more this week guys (also leaving stall thread open, you can still discuss stall's worth BUT you can't go for ladder reqs for hof when I put it on-site etc). i haven't used stall that much but i've used this playstyle more so i can actually discuss it, yay!

Introduction
In NU there are a variety of different playstyles you can use, however are all playstyles actually effective in this metagame? This project aims to explore the different playstyles you can use in NU, and discover how to make them most effective. Much like Research Group, you'll be discovering whether this playstyle is really cut out for the tier and what you actually need to succeed at it.

What do we discuss here?
The kind of stuff you can discuss here includes:

• why this playstyle in particular is or isn't effective in this metagame
• what Pokemon are most successful at this playstyle (is there a pokemon you haven't considered before such as braviary for example viable in stall? why? how?)
• teams you've been using that fit into this playstyle category
• speak about your ladder or general experiences with this playstyle
• if this playstyle was simply better in a past metagame
• or post about mons you intend to try out with this playstyle
• be creative!

What is Hyper Offense? (26 August - 2 September)
Hyper Offense is a playstyle mainly geared around trying to pull off a sweep, hyper offensive teams often include entry hazards to wear down common checks and counters to Pokemon found on the team, and members of a hyper offense team are almost always geared to wear down each other's checks and counters, letting a final mon sweep unimpeded. - Molk

Hall of Fame?
There will be one on NU's hub in the future along with Research Group, same applies as there:

• Users will attempt to reach as high as possible on the ladder with the Pokemon. Breaking past the 2000 mark on the ladder with your registered alt will earn you a spot on the Hall of Fame: Gold Class. Crossing the 1850 mark will secure you a Silver Class spot while a 1700 rating will earn you a Bronze Class spot. Post a screen-shot of your peak in order to achieve this, and a pastebin of your team. Note: this is for Glicko2. You must also have a deviation of 85.
• Users will be expected to post their experiences with the Pokemon they use, the teams they used, the problems they encountered while trying to make the said Pokemon work.
• If a user does not participate in the discussion, he will be passed over.
• In order to participate in the challenge, simply post here with a brand new alt. Post battle logs, experiences with your team on the ladder, and generally how a Pokemon has worked out for you: past or present.

Also feel free to use anything from Research Group for this particular week if it fits into this playstyle! You can discuss the individual Pokemon's performance there, but here you discuss the team as a whole, and the playstyle, too. Have fun!

 

[Infernis]

Just to clarify, is there anything specific a qualifying team needs to contain? I'm not sure what the line is between offense and hyper offense, or if it even matters. Either way, it's my favorite playstyle, and I can't wait to make some new teams for it.

 

[Celever]

I'm really looking forward to using Hyper Offense in this metagame since I haven't yet... but I have no idea how to see the difference between Hyper-Offense and Offense. Please put it somewhere or something.

 

[Cherub Agent]

This is of course subjective, but I personally think that the difference between the two is the use of Dual Screens. I generally find that offensive teams can limit themselves to a fast Spiker such as Scolipede, whereas absolute hyper-offensive teams first bring out the Spiker, and then Gardevoir. Gardevoir is an absolute must on hyper-offense teams imo, due to the combination of Trace and three suicidal moves: Memento makes setting up an extraordinarily frail sweeper such as Linoone much easier, as sometimes Dual Screens just dont cut it. Healing Wish is better for teams that like having another team member start plowing through things again, as the use of a Spiker and Gardevoir cuts down the amount of possible sweepers on a team by one third, any opportunities to give a sweeper another go is much appreciated. The downside is of course that Gardevoir is less capable of setting something up, and would need to switch out, which means a sweeper is likely getting hit on the switch. Destiny Bond I guess is another Suicide move, useful if you have sweepers that have checks or counters that Gardevoir lures out. Oh yeah, you're also gonna have to choose between Taunt and Psychic. Prevents opposing setup, while Psychic is just a nice move to have coming from 125 SAtk.

Offensive teams are often troubled by really bulky stuff like Alomomola, and a single layer of Toxic Spikes is also often their downfall. That's why I think that Scolipede is absolutely necessary, to be able to absorb them, but again this has the downside that you need to know whether Scolipede can be sacked early game or not.

Overall though, I'm not a fan of hyper offense (in NU). You are pretty limited in team building, as the tier favours the bulky offense playstyle imo by virtue of the Pokemon in it. You also cannot allow your opponent to gain momentum, and if you somehow fail this I've found that there isn't much to be done that can help you get back on your feet. No, I prefer regular offense with Pokemon that are lethal cleaners or busters without the need of setup, such as Swellow and Zangoose. The teamslots that you save on offense to allow for more adaptability while playing outweigh the Dual Screens imo.

I can start talking about weather (Rain ♥) but I assume that'll be some other week.

 

[Punchshroom]

Isn't weather considered a type of Hyper Offense anyway? It's not like you can do much else with it.

 

[ryan]

Ah, this is where all of the discussion on hyper offense came from on IRC. I was wondering what sparked the interest.

I've never seen screens-based hyper offense as a very good strategy in NU. The tier simply doesn't have enough really effective setup sweepers for screens-based hyper offense to play effectively. I've got a screens offense team that works well sometimes, but it's very matchup reliant. My team runs dual screens Gardevoir, Sash Scolipede, Expert Belt Stealth Rock Seismitoad, Sub Nasty Plot Simisear, Taunt/DD Fraxure, and SD Lum Samurott. The team isn't bad by any means, but it's very inconsistent. This might have something to do with the fact that I spent a total of about five minutes making this team, whereas I normally take up to an hour to make a well-built team.

Regardless, to me, the only fairly reliable hyper offense teams in NU are based around either rain or sun. Both playstyles are really effective, but rain is typically better for fairly obvious reasons—on top of the doubled Speed that Swift Swim Pokemon get, most of them also get an extra boost to their STAB move. On top of that, the main attacking type of rain, Water, has very few viable Pokemon that resist it. There are a few pretty hard stops to Water-type attacks, such as Ludicolo, Mantine, and Seismitoad, but some of them are easily handled with coverage moves.

Sun is still really good though because there are a lot of really scary Pokemon that fit the playstyle well. Exeggutor hits stupid hard right off the bat, while Victreebel hits respectably hard off the bad and ridiculously hard after a Growth boost. Sawsbuck is another example of a really good sun sweeper, but it's a bit easier to wall, in my experience. You also have strong wallbreakers such as Charizard that really love sun support. Sun is actually a playstyle I've never explored at all outside of playing against it, and I've been wanting to build a team around it for a while.

 

[Punchshroom]

I've tried both Rain and Sun, though I've lost interest in Rain ever since Amoonguss was booted up. Even then, both weathers are very threatening in their own right.

Rain has the benefit of fast boosted Water attacks that can swamp the meta, while Jynx is both a foe and an ally to Rain. Water attacks have great neutral coverage and relatively few resists, and that, along with Swift Swim, is mainly what gives Rain teams their strength.

Sun, on the other hand, suffers from not having the best of both worlds: Chlorophyll sweepers don't have great coverage with their STAB, while Fire-types don't get their speed boosted. However, while Rain teams are scary with their neutral coverage, Sun teams are scary because they nuke shit. Between things like Victreebel, Charizard, Rapidash and Exeggutor, you really have to watch your back. And then there's things like Sawsbuck, Shiftry and Jumpluff who don't look that threatening at first but can easily pull a fast one on you (especially with their access to Swords Dance) and steamroll you too. Just about any sweeper in a Sun team not only hits hard, but can run different moves to wreck your unsuspecting ass, like Victreebel with Leaf Blade to shred your Munchlax or Mantine, or Exeggutor with Psyshock or Explosion, or even Harvest should they want to infuriate people if that's their game. Oh, and most Chlorophyll sweepers have Sleep Powder....yeah.

 

[skylight]

Guys js I'm going to have a thread for each weather in the future so try not to go into detail onto it because HO is more than just weather.

 

[watashi]

i'm pretty sure teams with sash scolipede or dwebble loaded up with a bunch of sweepers is considered ho as well so it doesn't really have to be weather to be reliable as those teams can be pretty strong as well when built correctly. imo teams like this can be considered as ho because there are no dedicated walls on the team and the main focus of it is to attack the opponent and apply offensive pressure. offense, on the other hand, will utilize pokemon such as musharna or garbodor which might kill off momentum at times, but ho will always be applying offensive pressure.

 

[Punchshroom]

I think we mentioned weather because it is a style of HO, though not vice versa.

So what pokemon could fill in for a support pokemon (at best) in HO? Gardevoir has already been mentioned, with Dual Screens and 3 suicidal moves. Custap Golem seems pretty popular as well as a suicide lead, setting up SR and going boom, if not hitting back hard with its STAB. In fact, would other suicide leads such as LV1 Dwebble and Pineco or Sash Scolipede only find their place on offensive teams? Are notoriously hard-hitting/hard to wall but slower threat pokemon that can't boost their speed, such as Golurk, Samurott, and Eelektross, be worth using in Hyper Offense? How does one go about applying constant offensive pressure on the opponent while minimizing the risk of getting steamrolled by a speedy threat? Is Hyper Offense even what we would call a 'good' strategy, when compared to balance or even stall?

 

[Infernis]

I've been using Probopass a ton while testing out some teams, and it's just about the best 'support' Pokemon there is for some sweepers. It's a handy normal resist, sure, but more importantly it can take basically any neutral hit (and a lot of super effective ones) and volt switch right out to something to grab all the momentum you can carry. It can slap down some rocks if you need them. I think the most unique niche it has is Magnet Pull. There are a lot of steel Pokemon (Metang in particular) that are really hard to cleanly sweep. Probopass eats them alive.

As for using slower Pokemon in HO, I think there's definitely room. Samurott has Aqua Jet for speed anyway, but its ability to break walls is pretty handy as well. (Either Taunt or Swords Dance can do that.) I don't know if Sawk counts as slow, but he's proven really handy for breaking down walls so that my primary sweepers can have a field day. To me, there are really three roles on a HO team, though they can be tweaked a bit. Support Pokemon, which are for hazards and, in the case of Probopass, beating up specific threats to the team. Wallbreakers which... break walls so that your sweepers can sweep. And of course sweepers, who clean up after everyone is nice and damaged. I'm personally a fan of double scarves on HO teams, where you have one hard-hitting but not incredibly fast scarfer (like Jynx or Primeape) to take out a lot of the trash, plus a fast scarfer like Zebstrika to deal with the enemy's scarfers which might be the only things that can actually stop your other scarfer from cleaning up.

Now, just to lower that deviation.