Moody

[breh]

To be more on-topic, Evasion is quite simply the icing on the inconsistent cake. It only needs a single boost in the correct defense, or in speed, to become very threatening and start a full out many turn setup, depending upon what is out against it.

FUCKING THANK YOU.

This is what I truly feel about inconsistent - it's not based on evasion (which you guys seem to be WAY overexaggerating) but on getting boosts in the right stat at the right time. A speed boost is, by far, the most important boost to get for my glalie. If I get one that means I outspeed everything in the metagame but like... scarfed base 120s or something like that. at that point it's just a matter of getting a sub up or stalling the maximum 8 turns until I accrue enough boosts.

My point is:

Inconsistent (on Glalie, at least) is not broken due to evasion boosts. Hell evasion will only affect you... like what 2/21 of the time on a turn? those are, frankly, terrible odds. Inconsistent is OP mostly due to the speed boosts - if you get one, you can stall the time and the boosts you need will simply come over the 8 turns... at that point only priority and breloom bullet seed (implies you are slower by that point) can screw you over. Hell if you even get one sub up you really will win.

 

[Banryu]

Allright, a couple of (what I think are) reasonable counters of the evasion boosts from this ability have been brought up in the Octillery thread, and I wanted to bring a few of them to the table here, since the discussion is looking to be pretty chaotic. >.> (IE, everyone thinks its broken = panicking)

Clear Smog / Haze.
There appears to be a little discrepancy whether Clear Smog relies on accuracy, and therefore it is affected by evasion boosts, but if it is not, there's a perfectly reasonable solution that isn't completely useless otherwise, as it can be used to screw over Bulk Up / CM Sweepers like Roopushin, Rankurusu, Zuruzukin, etc. The Pokeball mushroom thing, Morarebu or whatever, is immune to Toxic, is bulky enough (and resistant to Water) to take repeated Surfs, and has access to Clear Smog, making it a decent example, in this case to deal with Octillery.

Technician Roserade

Guys, there's one Pokemon that I think can beat (non-Flamethrower) Octillery 1v1 that hasn't been discussed yet: Roserade.

Roserade gets Technician via Dream World. Combined with Magical Leaf, if Roserade switches right into Octillery, it seems that Octillery's only chance of winning 1v1 is haxing Special Defense boosts. I was thinking something like:

Roserade @ Leftovers
Modest/Timid (Modest probably preferred as this thing's purpose is to beat Octillery)
EVs: whatever, probably 6/252/252 unless a better spread emerges
- Magical Leaf
- HP Fire/Ice (at power 60)
- Toxic Spikes / Spikes / Sleep Powder
- Psych Up / Sleep Powder / Synthesis

Roserade also has an advantage over the other janky "counters" because it isn't a useless standalone Pokemon. It still absorbs and sets up (Toxic) Spikes and can put something to sleep.

I think once DW Roserade is released Octillery will have met its match at last.

Bam. Beats Inconsistent Octillery with relative ease and can still be useful outside of smacking around Octilery.
And everything else that gets Inconsistent is weak to Nasty Plot Lucario's Aura Sphere.

Perish Song
Again, I'm not sure if this is affected by accuracy, but if it isn't, it's pretty much an insta-shutdown to any Inconsistent Poke, especially Smeargle, who's likely to use it to Baton Pass away (note that Perish Song's effect is passed along with boosts and Ingrain and stuff).

 

[Enlong]

And because foresight just sucks.

Humor me. Explain why it sucks. Because to me, it looks all right: nullifies every Evasion boost, prevents the target from getting any more, not effected by the evasion boost itself, goes through substitutes, only need o use it once per switch, I'm not getting the obvious suck here. So please, continue to assume I don't know anything about what you're talking about, and elaborate.

 

[Arc Tech]

Ice beam Octillery and Glalie make Roserade cry. Most of the supposed counters are weak to ice, making ice beam a very viable choice on octillery.

Clear Smog, Haze and Perish song have the problem of a very limited user pool. They are also outright useless on more offensive pokemon becuase they just then take a very big hit anyway.

Possible users of clear smog:

Mushy: Weak to ice, but otherwise good.
Weezing: poor special defense

Possible users of haze:
Murkrow: probably best, but weak to ice. Not crippling unless it's glalie though
Milotic: Energy ball octillery beats it, but it beats glalie
Crobat: Weak to ice, beaten if they have a speed boost as well.

Perish song:
Politoed: Useless outside rain teams.
...Perish song is really the worst phazing move of them all. I can't really think of much else that would want to try and use it.

Clear smog and Haze are mostly inferior to other forms of phaze because:
-No hazard damage.
-No scouting your opponents best switch in.
-Leaves the threat in to keep hitting you, and they could boost up again afterwards and hit you boosted if they're faster, forcing you to either take boosted hit only hitting with a 50 bp move (if it's clear smog) while they continue attacking and wearing you down. a +2 crit will end most anything.
-Ineffective on steels (clear smog).

Humor me. Explain why it sucks. Because to me, it looks all right: nullifies every Evasion boost, prevents the target from getting any more, not effected by the evasion boost itself, goes through substitutes, only need o use it once per switch, I'm not getting the obvious suck here. So please, continue to assume I don't know anything about what you're talking about, and elaborate.

It is useless against anything other than evasion. It takes up a moveslot that is usually needed for coverage, or for status/healing (if a defensive pokemon), and can as a result cripple a poke going against anything other than evasion. Basicly put, evasion forces you to run a counter or roll dice, and a counter to evasion does poorly against everything else.

 

[XienZo]

Humor me. Explain why it sucks. Because to me, it looks all right: nullifies every Evasion boost, prevents the target from getting any more, not effected by the evasion boost itself, goes through substitutes, only need o use it once per switch, I'm not getting the obvious suck here. So please, continue to assume I don't know anything about what you're talking about, and elaborate.

Your opponent has no Inconsistant user, or even, your opponent's Inconsistant user gets Defense/SpDefense boosts instead of evasion boosts. What is Foresight going to do?

 

[Enlong]

Your opponent has no Inconsistant user, or even, your opponent's Inconsistant user gets Defense/SpDefense boosts instead of evasion boosts. What is Foresight going to do?

Oh for the love of-

I'm strictly talking about Evasion itself this is the result of an Evasion-bsed rant that just happened to happen in this thread.

I'm sorry, but did you miss the last bolded disclaimer?

 

[Thee]

After experimentation, I find that a big part of an Inconsistent user's success depends on getting enough of the right boosts early on the be able to boost to massive stats.
You need a proper set up and situation to allow you to get the ball rolling. (I.E. stack boosts. For this, I use Wobb and Espeon. Please don't question whether this is smart or not, or state what counters you have--I was just testing/giving an example, and I didn't spend more than 2 minutes thinking about it. I do not want to bring my personal choices into the focus of the discussion)
If you just switch an Inconsistent user in, chances are, without many boosts and with NU stats, it is relatively possible to revenge.

 

[Banryu]

The thread isn't solely about the discussion of Evasion, Enlong, it's about the ability Inconsistent and everything that comes with it. :0 People have a right to bring up stuff like that as it pertains to the topic.

Ice beam Octillery and Glalie make Roserade cry. Most of the supposed counters are weak to ice, making ice beam a very viable choice on octillery.

I haven't been on PO much lately, but I thought most Octillery used Surf and Toxic in their last two slots. :0 How much variety is there as far as Octillery's last slot goes? I know Octy has a on of variety in his movepool, but Water + almost anything he has access to leaves him walled by someone or other... especially Blissey, who can just stall it out of PP if it carries 2 attacking moves.

Clear Smog, Haze and Perish song have the problem of a very limited user pool. They are also outright useless on more offensive pokemon becuase they just then take a very big hit anyway.

Possible users of clear smog:

Mushy: Weak to ice, but otherwise good.
Weezing: poor special defense
Don't forget Weezing gets Stockpile now... that and he can be very special-defensively EV'd (Stockpile + Will-O-Wisp + natural physical bulk means he might not need to invest as heavily) kinda fixes it.

Possible users of haze:
Murkrow: probably best, but weak to ice. Not crippling unless it's glalie though
Milotic: Energy ball octillery beats it, but it beats glalie
Crobat: Weak to ice, beaten if they have a speed boost as well.
What about Vappy? And yeah, MH Murkrow seems pretty good. He can just Taunt on the Sub or something and then switch someone resistant in to take the Ice Beam and deal with the semi-disabled Inconsistant poke accordingly. Or Haze first to deal with Evasion boosts.

Perish song:
Politoed: Useless outside rain teams.
...Perish song is really the worst phazing move of them all. I can't really think of much else that would want to try and use it.

^v At both of these: That's normally true, but in the case of Inconsistent, they're actually much better than other forms of phaze. In this regard, in fact, Perish Song is actually the best at dealing with Inconsistent, since it not only isn't affected by Evasion, it also goes through Protect, and it puts Inconsistent Pokes on a timer, effectively rendering them useless, really.
...at least until they switch in again. As for Haze and Clear Smog, they might not have the overall utility of stuff like Roar, but they're still not completely useless outside of dealing with Inconsistent.

Clear smog and Haze are mostly inferior to other forms of phaze because:
-No hazard damage.
-No scouting your opponents best switch in.
-Leaves the threat in to keep hitting you, and they could boost up again afterwards and hit you boosted if they're faster, forcing you to either take boosted hit only hitting with a 50 bp move (if it's clear smog) while they continue attacking and wearing you down. a +2 crit will end most anything.
-Ineffective on steels (clear smog).
No Steels get Inconsistent, so I don't really see how that's relevant.

Added my comments as green and bold.


Also, doesn't Inconsistent have the same chance of lowering stats as it does of raising them? I think people are forgetting this, and maybe getting more scared of this than they should be. :0

 

[petrie911]

Perish song:
Politoed: Useless outside rain teams.
...Perish song is really the worst phazing move of them all. I can't really think of much else that would want to try and use it.

Celebi is an excellent user of Perish Song. Natural Cure lets it take Toxics all day, it has reliable recovery, and it switches in easily with its good bulk.

Also, looking at the list of Pokemon with Inconsistent, the best possible counter seems obvious. Toxic Spikes. Tspikes, single or dual layered, will stop every one of those Pokemon in their tracks. Tentacruel, Roserade, and Forretress are all great Pokemon for laying them down.

 

[Arc Tech]

And also for absorbing them (Tentacruel and Roserade anyway).

Toxic spikes is too easily absorbed to be a viable counter.

 

[Enlong]

I understand Banryu, so I'm breaking off my rant about evasion now, if nobody minds, since it doesn't belong in this thread in the first place.

 

[Banryu]

Yeah, I was gonna say, there are also good users of Perish Song not named Politoed, too. It's really not 100% useless, it has its benefits.

EDIT @ Enlong: yes thanks. There's no reason you can't still contribute, I'm just saying don't get all uptight about that stuff... well you get it so nevermind.

 

[Arc Tech]

Yeah I know there are other users of perish song as well. I just couldn't think of them. And perish song is a very poor phazing move because:
1) You're phazed too.
2) If you have no trappers, they still get 2 turns to blast you with boosted attacks.
3) If they have a trapper and predict it... do I really need to spell it out?

 

[Seiterman]

I don't think anyone's mentioned No Guard Machamp or Goruggo as viable counters yet, unless I missed it. Goruggo might be iffy because of its partial ground-typing, but Machamp has already proven to be a powerful force. Is there any reason No Guard Machamp can't deal with the evasion boosts Inconsistent occasionally causes?

 

[Arc Tech]

Because evasion isn't the biggest problem of inconsistent. The abuse can just stall for defense boosts and (sp)atk boosts until machamp gets ko'd by it, dies to toxic, or can't break their subs.

 

[voodoo pimp]

I don't think anyone's mentioned No Guard Machamp or Goruggo as viable counters yet, unless I missed it. Goruggo might be iffy because of its partial ground-typing, but Machamp has already proven to be a powerful force. Is there any reason No Guard Machamp can't deal with the evasion boosts Inconsistent occasionally causes?

It's slow and its strongest attacks have lol PP, so you'll probably run out just trying to break their subs, especially once they get a few defense boosts up.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Honestly, the only reliable way I see Inconsistent teams being beaten without resorting to gimmicks that are useless 90% of the time cough*Foresight*cough is not allowing them the chance to set up. By running a Heavy Offense team if your chosen sweeper is able to take out the majority of your opponents team including the Inconsistent user(s) then your alright. Even then if the Inconsistent user comes in after a kill and Protects, it still has a 3/7 chance (Evasion, Speed, and whatever Defense counters your sweeper) of setting up the cycle and making your set up worthless. Not to mention that running HO leaves you vulnerable to half the other metagame playstyles (weather specifically) meaning that your team loses to half of the teams you see, plus half of the teams you're intending to counter.
When you are required to run specific moves/stlyes/team members to counter a set of Pokemon that in any other situation would be either useless, or very circumstantial, then that is over-centralising. Inconsistent needs to go.

 

[Arc Tech]

HO is able to counter weather (mainly by running abomasnow). Most HO temas are themselves weather teams as well.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Yes, but ones that are set after an 4th gen mindset e.g running a Dual Screens Memento lead and bringing out a mon to set up and destroy the rest of the team-like Shell Break Cloyster.

Also, before anyone mentions the Roserade set posted earlier if you are forced to run a specific Pokemon with a specific set in order to counter a team regardless of how well it works with your team then that is also over-centralising.

 

[Jamesb8]

Yeah I know there are other users of perish song as well. I just couldn't think of them. And perish song is a very poor phazing move because:
1) You're phazed too.
2) If you have no trappers, they still get 2 turns to blast you with boosted attacks.
3) If they have a trapper and predict it... do I really need to spell it out?

The U-turn on celebi helps crap loads. Been using the set out of the DP Analysis and it is effective.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Personally, I'd rather keep Celebi in. It's bulkier than most of the things you could switch in. Obviously the problem with that is that it then has the potential to be trapped. Which means that either way something is still taking a hell of a lot of damage.

 

[blasphemy1]

You definitely want to Perish Song -> U-turn. If they have a Shandera or some shit you're gonna get trapped and killed, meaning you can't check Inconsistent users the rest of the match. Just run CeleTran; Heatran 4x resists Ice Beam, gets a boost from Flamethrower, and is immune to Toxic. You can run Protect to stall out the remaining turns (Perish Song; falls to 3; U-turn; falls to 2; Protect; falls to 1; switch or die).

 

[Engineer Pikachu]

I don't think anyone's mentioned No Guard Machamp or Goruggo as viable counters yet, unless I missed it. Goruggo might be iffy because of its partial ground-typing, but Machamp has already proven to be a powerful force. Is there any reason No Guard Machamp can't deal with the evasion boosts Inconsistent occasionally causes?

It's slow and its strongest attacks have lol PP, so you'll probably run out just trying to break their subs, especially once they get a few defense boosts up.

Voodoo said what I was going to say, but there's another reason: D-Punch's confusion effect doesn't hit through subs, so the main point of using it is pretty much negated. Octillery can dish out some hefty damage with Surf against Gorugoo, though. The thing about Inconsistent is that you have to act fast. Really fast.

 

[deiphobus]

Humor me. Explain why it sucks. Because to me, it looks all right: nullifies every Evasion boost, prevents the target from getting any more, not effected by the evasion boost itself, goes through substitutes, only need o use it once per switch, I'm not getting the obvious suck here. So please, continue to assume I don't know anything about what you're talking about, and elaborate.

While you're foresighting, the opponent can attack, gather more boosts, sub, anything really. It's sort of useless if you foresight a sub and you're killed two turns later. They can Protect your foresight, sub the next one, protect, start attacking, whatever. If you actually try to apply these things in real battle, instead of sitting around and hypothesizing, you'll find it's really not practical, except in certain situations, if you're lucky.

 

[Banryu]

Yes, but ones that are set after an 4th gen mindset e.g running a Dual Screens Memento lead and bringing out a mon to set up and destroy the rest of the team-like Shell Break Cloyster.

Also, before anyone mentions the Roserade set posted earlier if you are forced to run a specific Pokemon with a specific set in order to counter a team regardless of how well it works with your team then that is also over-centralising.

Technician Roserade isn't THAT specific. The boost to Magical Leaf and HP are pretty worth using, IMO.

Anyway, Perish-Uturn Celebi seems reasonably good and also isn't overly specific.

EDIT: Ah, I just thought of something. How might Trace fare against these guys?