Had another go at the Palace with this team and did slightly better.I've moved on from the Factory and put in some time to actually train my own team instead of sponging from the AI, so I'm announcing:
Battle Palace Doubles Lv. 50 - 47 Streak (ended)
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I was reading some comments in this thread and on Discord about Palace strategies and a couple of them caught my eye.
Firstly, Kommo-o talking about using a Bold Milotic with Toxic to try and actually get some use out of wasted turns by allowing poison to wear down foes. And secondly, Zsy6 mentioned about Curse being a Support move, and suggested Curselax or Curse Miltank as possibilities (with an Impish nature).
Looking at the table of Natures and what their move probabilities are, I figured that since Snorlax has the special bulk to tank a lot of hits and, after repeated Curses, has a lot of physical bulk, I thought the 25%/17% chances of using Curse with Impish looked a little low. Particularly, that 17% chance at <50% means there's a decent chance of Snorlax continuing to Curse when it's at low HP instead of healing itself. Ideally, if it's possibly only got one or two turns left before being KO'd, I'd rather it attacked or healed itself.
So, instead of Impish, I settled on Jolly, with probabilities of 35%/5%/60% and 35%/60%/5% (<50% HP). This means there's only a 5% chance of it using Curse on low health, and correspondingly there's a 95% chance of it either rampaging or sleeping. That chunky 60% chance of using Curse at high HP is also great, because it means Snorlax builds power and bulk quickly in early turns, and so lasts a lot longer. The downside, of course, being that Jolly is +Spe instead of +Def. I figured after a couple of Curses this might offset itself. I selected Immunity over Thick Fat because it's bulky enough on the special side already, and dodging Toxic is a nice ability to have.
Offensively, it made sense to go for Body Slam (decent power, paralysis chance, 100 accuracy) and Earthquake. I didn't want the recoil from Double-Edge; Hyper Beam's wasted turn and accuracy is an issue; and I basically just didn't really think very hard about Return. I might include Return in the future if the damage calcs look good, but the majority of the time, Snorlax is hitting after boosting its Atk anyway. Earthquake is just the go-to move in Doubles and firing it off after a few Curses is a great prospect. Plus, it gets around the issue of single-target moves being 'randomly' targeted in Palace, meaning you don't keep using it over and over against a Levitate or Flying-type foe without at least damaging its Ally.
With Snorlax banked, and its best offensive possibilities including Earthquake, I wanted to move away from Milotic for Doubles, because having to tank boosted Earthquakes from Snorlax was not a happy prospect. Indeed, I needed both potential partners to be completely immune to Earthquake, because there's no way of using Protect reliably and Snorlax could very well be at +6 Atk. I still wanted to include something bulky with access to Toxic, since this would pair well with Snorlax's propensity to keep Cursing and Resting, which wastes a lot of turns. As well as this, I wanted something with access to a healing move which isn't Rest (having both Pokemon asleep at the same time doesn't sound like fun).
So that's where I hit upon Latias: 80/90/130 HP and defences make it bulkier than Latias, a good defensive typing to take advantage of that 130 SpD stat, and access to Recover. Its Psychic typing also synergises well with Snorlax, throwing STAB Psychics at the Fighting types which make up Snorlax's main threats. And Levitate for immunity to Earthquake, of course. It can tank special hits, and even super effective hits from weakish foes.
I'm using my old Emerald cartridge and for some reason I decided to make Latias my roamer instead of Latios way back when. When I caught it, its nature was Impish, which actually is arguably slightly nicer than Bold when it comes to probabilities. It's significantly less likely to use Toxic (50%/10% for Bold; 25%/17% for Impish), but this also minimises wasted turns trying to inflict Toxic again on a Steel-, Poison-type or something that's already poisoned. Since Latias's SpA is a respectable 110, it can actually inflict some damage with increased probabilities of attacking (69%/28% for Impish; 30%/32% for Bold). And when it comes to using Recover, it's 14% less likely to use it at >50% HP (effectively wasting a turn) but only 4% less likely at <50% HP. Of course, the massive drawback is that Impish is a -SpA nature.
Offensively, I needed Psychic to try and KO Fighting-types which threaten Snorlax, as well as hitting Poison-types immune to Toxic; and I also added Surf for added pressure against Steel-types which are immune to Toxic. Plus, Surf being a spread move gets around the targeting issue in the Palace. I did consider Mist Ball, since in return for a drop in power you get a 50% chance of dropping SpA which can cripple quite a few problematic opponents. However, I considered 70 base power (only 105 with STAB...) to just be too low. Plus, it only has 8 PP and Palace battles can last much longer.
For my final team member, I wanted to utilise the other main strategy in the Palace, namely Hasty Choice Band to try and get consistent offensive pressure. I needed something immune to Earthquake, which could preferably counter Ice-types which threatened Latias, had two or three good offensive moves to take advantage of Choice Band, and was fast enough to secure revenge-kills when needed.
I settled on Aerodactyl, which, whilst far from perfect (frail, typing could be better), had a lot of good points. Hasty nature gives it the Spe to outrun everything in Palace except Jolteon-4; STAB Rock Slide spread attack; access to Earthquake; good counter to Ice-types.
Very little to it: only two moves, Choice Band, and it's my reserve team member to come in and go for KOs when Latias and Snorlax have weakened everything. Choice Band boosted Earthquake does hit Snorlax, but its physical bulk (plus possible Curses) minimise the damage. Unfortunately, neither Pressure or Rock Head are especially good abilities but Pressure's better than nothing.
Eon (Latias) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: No
EVs: 252 HP / 150 SpD / 108 Spe
IVs: 30 / 18 / 0 / 18 / 8 / 5
Impish Nature
- Psychic
- Recover
- Toxic
- Surf
Professor (Snorlax) (M) @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Immunity
Shiny: No
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 6 SpD
IVs: 13 / 24 / 21 / 20 / 17 / 12
Jolly Nature
- Body Slam
- Rest
- Curse
- Earthquake
Pteraplane (Aerodactyl) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Pressure
Shiny: No
EVs: 86 HP / 252 Atk / 172 Spe
IVs: 23 / 27 / 6 / 24 / 20 / 21
Hasty Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- No Move
- No Move
Lead with Latias and Snorlax, and 6 times out of 7, you just need to press 'A' about twenty times and collect a win. Aerodactyl was very rarely required except as a tactical switch-in.
Latias has enough Speed EVs to get it to 131 which basically is just neatly ahead of things like other Latias, which can help with getting the jump. I only tend to switch Latias out if I'm facing a strong Ice- or Dragon-type which I know will KO Latias easily. Its special bulk makes this relatively unusual. Blizzard is less of a threat in Doubles because its power is diminished, and a lot of non-STAB Ice Beams etc. are 3HKOs and can be sponged with Recover. Additionally, since it's Palace, the AI often doesn't select the optimal moves to begin with, and often Latias is hit by Flamethrower or Hydro Pump instead of Ice Beam and Dragon Claw. Status isn't ideal, especially Toxic, but Leftovers over Lum Berry provides a lot of passive healing during the myriad of wasted turns. And even then, being burned isn't so bad; paralysis is annoying but not actually crippling; Confusion is annoying but recoil damage isn't massive. Access to Recover (and using it liberally) goes a long way to compensate for status. I usually found that Latias spends most of her time attacking with Psychic or Surf, occasionally throwing out Toxic. Under 50% HP, it's nearly always Recover.
Snorlax is a boring task of spamming Curse for as long as it wants, before eventually finding the time to attack. I only switch it out if there's a powerful Fighting-type foe which can do a lot of damage on the first turn. Focus Punch is a particular problem, because you can't rely on Latias actually attacking on the first turn for sure. After a few Curses Snorlax can tank hits so I don't tend to switch it out once it's got going. Unfortunately it can and will try to Rest when it's only lost a tiny bit of HP but this is minimal. I think in the entire run Snorlax was only KO'd once or twice, total, it just lasts forever with Rest.
Aerodactyl has the Speed EVs to touch the magic 183, then the rest is in HP and Atk since it can only at best tie Jolteon-4. There's no strategy for Aerodactyl. I only bring it in against threats which would be problematic for Latias or Snorlax. Sometimes I allow Latias to faint in order to give it a free switch-in, but with Surf's power reduced, Blizzard's power reduced, and the general unpredictability of the Palace, I don't think I ever had any problems with getting it in safely. Rock typing has general utility in just resisting a lot of the usual AI spam attacks. It's possible Aerodactyl could have some strong points as a lead Pokemon, as it's fast and consistently hits, but unfortunately both Toxic and Curse need turns to get going and allowing Aerodactyl to hang around unnecessarily long doing ineffectual damage only hinders the team.
Generally in the Palace, there's not much 'strategy' because you've got extremely limited input. In 3v3 Singles, the ability to switch gives you three potential match-ups between you and the foe; in Doubles, there are only two, and one of your Pokemon has to stay on the field no matter what. This means that there's even less input than ever. The main strategy to avoid this problem is just to make a front pair who are bulky. Unlike in Dome/Tower etc., powerful but frail Pokemon struggle because the balance of probabilities is not in their favour. The strong law of large numbers is your friend in Palace.
The good thing about Palace, as opposed to other facilities, is that the AI is extremely stupid. Although it's impossible to counter specific threats with your own team, sometimes very threatening foes can be KO'd without doing anything because the Palace probabilities ruin them. For the same reason that it's important to use different natures on your team in Palace, the AI struggles against the bad natures it gets saddled with. Movesets are also not tailored to the Palace, so sometimes you can get a foe with 4 offensive moves and only a 20% chance of attacking (e.g. Lonely nature). Jolteon-4 has a 50% chance of using Thunder Wave at low HP (even if you're already paralysed) and a 20% chance of doing nothing.
The Palace is full of problems, because it's impossible to guarantee being able to use a single move at any given time. Most of them have little or no reliable way to counter.
I have wondered about the utility of Gengar instead of Aerodactyl in the third slot to counter some of these threats, but normal Gengar strategies are too difficult to execute in the Palace. It doesn't gain much from Choice Band, and really I would just be using it for the Ghost- and Ground-type immunities without any real reason. Flygon is another possibility but it shares a crippling Ice-type weakness with Latias.
- OHKO moves. I've got no answer to most OHKO users apart from just trying to KO them as fast as possible. I actually lost an early-round match on a previous streak to Pinsir-2 with Guillotine, who KO'd Snorlax on Turn 1 and Latias on Turn 2. It's luck, in the end, that means the OHKO users are unable to use their power or just miss the attacks.
- Quick Claw. It's not a huge problem because both Latias and Snorlax are tanky, but QC Double-Edge or Earthquake on Turn 1 can weaken Snorlax quite a bit. Sometimes if EQ is a problem I switch straight to Aerodactyl for immunity.
- Bulky (or Double Team) Pokemon immune to Toxic. Skarmory, Weezing, Venusaur, Registeel etc. can all cause problems because there's no way of wearing them down. Usually I just have to wait until I get lucky with SpD drops from Psychic or Snorlax gets 4 or 5 Curses off. Thankfully relatively few of them are seriously threatening in their own right.
- Bulky fighting-types can be problematic as usually Latias can't OHKO. Focus Punch is also unpredictable.
- Boosting opponents can be threatening because sometimes, infuriatingly, Latias/Snorlax just won't attack them, then get into a loop of using Recover/Rest.
- Aerodactyl can get locked into Earthquake as the final Pokemon on the field, and be unable to hit Pokemon that are immune.
- Teeter Dance is extremely frustrating, because it confuses everything on the field, and you can't effectively counter it by switching because you can only switch one Pokemon per turn. Aerodactyl does a lot of recoil damage to itself through confusion.
- Targeting is a perennial problem: just because Latias uses Psychic, doesn't mean it's going to target that OHKO it could get on Gloom rather than the ineffective attack on its partner Cacturne. This is frustrating and, given the number of immunities around (Ghost-types, Steel-types, Poison-types, Flying-types, Levitate, Immunity, Water Absorb, Dark-types), it happens often.
- Explosion users are a big issue before Snorlax can get off a few Curses, but this is down to luck as to whether they even use it, and even if they do, the ally damage can mean you're in a 1v1 situation at worst.
- Latias's offensive stats are a bit lacking. Nearly everything is a 2HKO at best.
To be honest, I didn't even bother to make notes for most of the run. None of my previous battles were close.
I lost on Battle 22 of my first streak because of Pinsir-2 (previously mentioned) which hit twice in two turns with Guillotine, then finished off Aerodactyl. That kind of luck just can't be countered.
The eventual loss on Battle 48 started by facing Rest/Curse Skarmory and an Explosion Golem. Neither of these is especially threatening to Latias and Snorlax, but Explosion is a problem when Skarmory can survive it. It's possible I might have played better by switching Latias for Aerodactyl to leave Latias facing Skarmory and an unknown Ally, but Surf is my best counter to Golem and I was reluctant to give Golem more turns than it needed. Unfortunately, Golem survived Surf and promptly blew itself up, KOing Snorlax and Latias and leaving Skarmory on ~1/3 HP. Aerodactyl came in, and Golem's replacement was Flygon. Aerodactyl spent two turns doing nothing while Skarmory used unboosted Fly and Flygon used Earthquake twice, so I thought that if I could get Rock Slide, I might just grind it out. It locked itself into Earthquake instead, and the match was over.
Very happy with how this went and if I can find time, I may try to push it out longer or make some tweaks. Really enjoying Doubles and this team is, surprisingly, quite fun to play with, despite the Palace's quirks. Would love to break 50.
Battle Palace Doubles Lv. 50 - 55 Streak (ended)
Exactly the same team as before.
Facing a Heracross and Nidoking, set unknown. I was fearing a first-turn Brick Break/Double Kick type situation and switched Snorlax for Aerodactyl, since either Rock Slide or Earthquake would do some good damage. Latias hit Nidoking with Psychic for ~70% damage. Nidoking used Surf (so it's Nidoking-3) and did 30% damage to Aerodactyl. Heracross (moved after Latias so it's Heracross-1) followed it up with a Megahorn on Aerodactyl for the KO. Snorlax was back in for Turn 2. Latias used Toxic on Heracross, which possibly activated Guts, unfortunately. Nidoking was incapable of using its power. Heracross hit Snorlax with Megahorn and did about 75% damage. Snorlax Cursed. Turn 3: Latias hit Heracross with Psychic and did about 75% damage. Heracross used Megahorn on Latias for the OHKO and Nidoking landed Horn Drill on Snorlax.
A little disappointed by this because the team had overcome some much harder battles up to this point. Heracross is always a difficult Pokémon because of Megahorn/Brick Break threatening Latias and Snorlax on Turn 1, plus the risk of Guts, and up to this point my best strategy was to switch for Aerodactyl. In reality this battle might have gone better by leaving Snorlax in on Turn 1, especially since it was Nidoking-3 which is the most threatening to Aerodactyl anyway with Surf.
0- SpA Latias Psychic vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Nidoking: 122-144 (64.8 - 76.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0- SpA Latias Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Heracross: 102-120 (65.8 - 77.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Even a Bold Latias with max SpA EV investment wouldn't have got OHKOs on these two. The key to my downfall was losing Aerodactyl without it being able to attack.
A little disappointed by this because the team had overcome some much harder battles up to this point. Heracross is always a difficult Pokémon because of Megahorn/Brick Break threatening Latias and Snorlax on Turn 1, plus the risk of Guts, and up to this point my best strategy was to switch for Aerodactyl. In reality this battle might have gone better by leaving Snorlax in on Turn 1, especially since it was Nidoking-3 which is the most threatening to Aerodactyl anyway with Surf.
0- SpA Latias Psychic vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Nidoking: 122-144 (64.8 - 76.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0- SpA Latias Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Heracross: 102-120 (65.8 - 77.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Even a Bold Latias with max SpA EV investment wouldn't have got OHKOs on these two. The key to my downfall was losing Aerodactyl without it being able to attack.
Banded Normal types are a nightmare for this team since I got no resistances or immunities to their moves. The worst part is that Granbull gets a guaranteed kill depending on what it chooses since it could pick either Shadow Ball or Mega Kick with the latter breaking Blissey's eggs into smithereens.
It's a troublesome Pokemon on Singles since I got no Steel type resist on the team either. I do not want to switch Heracross or Blissey into a Meteor Mash on my face so usually Latios dies on it. Extremely bad news if it leads on a non-healing battle. On Doubles, it's not so threatening since you can double target it (although without a Guts boost, Earthquake + Thunderbolt is still a roll).
Thunderbolt has a small chance of OHKO so it forces out Heracross most of the time. Not a big deal but since Blissey is forced to take damage if it's Set 2, it hurts.
+ 
or 
Explosion with Damp / Ghost type is a pretty dangerous combination and with the lack of Protect, it can be deadly if unchecked. To make matters worse, all Golem needs is a Quick Claw activation to completely fuck you over.
