I think Beartic would work better as an anti-rain pokemon or an anti-hail pokemon because you're limiting several team capabilities by running double weather.
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Metagame Pokébilities
- Thread starter Ivy
- Start date
It sucks knowing today is the last day of this metagame. Pokebilities is easily my favorite metagame and it hurts to see it go again, especially because the fate of it on alternate servers is unknown at this time. Seeing many pokemon rise or fall in viability simply because of having all of their abilities at once is astounding and I wish that this metagame lasted longer, especially because I'm sure there's pokemon I still need to look into, even after looking into so many pokemon that could work well in the theoretical lower tiers. Even when pokebilities is no longer on smogon, I will continue to look into and study the metagame. It may not be an official metagame, but I don't care, I love this metagame. So, thank you to the people of this forum, thank you to the creators of this metagame, and thank you to the players of this metagame. I will continue to analyze and attempt to push this metagame as far as it can go.
I'm not sure if it is ok to say it here, but we've decided to keep pokebilities in the side server china.psim.us as a special format :) so if you want to theres always a place for you to play it.
^To staff: If mentioning side servers is not allowed by forum rules, please delete my post, and I'll know for next time.
https://pokemonshowdown.com/
China is in the registered server list, so you're good!
But, once again, reminder that Pokébilities (should) remain a challengeable format, so you will still be able invite people even after the server updates for Sketchmons.
Is there any battle bots in the china server? I'm a native English speaker, so I can't talk to most people there, and pokebilities isn't exactly a popular metagame, so it's difficult to find battles, which I just used the Abyssal Bot for on the random other metas server to fight in pokebilities prior to it's re-release on the normal showdown server.
I know this forum is kind of dead, but is it still allowed to reply to the thread? Let's say I find out a pokemon that would theoretically do really well in the metagame that hasn't been mentioned, would I just have to keep that to myself?
Got it, thank you for clarifying
Ok, so when theory crafting, I often face the abyssal bot on the R.O.M. server for pokemon that were introduced before gen 8. If they were introduced during gen 8, I can't. I tried out some starters, and I noticed two things. Sceptile is surprisingly ok, and Charizard is awful. Sub+Petaya sets with Sceptile allow it one turn of setup with free Unburden boost and Overgrow, Giga Drain allows you to get to good health again, and you can reset it back to low health again with Substitute. Charizard, however, can't do this. Even on sun teams, Charizard is awful. Boots is extremely helpful, but the main difference between Zard and Sceptile is Sceptile can heal while attacking while Charizard is reliant on Roost, allowing Sceptile to get much more milage. To add to that, Charizard loses health even after setting up Substitute in sun, even if not attacked, forcing it to waste more Roost PP. Sure, your sun boosted Solar Power and Blaze Boosted Modest 31 IV 252 EV Blast Burn may incinerate an Eternamax Eternatus, but what's the point if you will never be able to do anything other than Substitute and Roost because you're constantly losing health. A common defense I hear for Charizard in this case is "Solar Power just needs the sun, you don't have to run Substitute." However, you want to take advantage of Blaze too, which you can't do if over 1/3 of your current HP, so you'll have to be in that range while setting up a Substitute and taking sun damage, and you just end up wasting sun turns more often than not as you spend so much of the time setting up and healing. If you want a pokemon that will always land one kill if played properly, Conkeldurr is always a better option. If you want a reliable sun pokemon, Leafeon, Exeggutor, Heliolisk, there are so many better pokemon at fulfilling either of its roles and it's much more worth it to have two different pokemon fill two roles than trying to compress said roles into a pokemon that will never get the chance to take advantage of those roles and just weighs down your team.
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I found something that I think is pretty interesting. I was in the R.O.M. server, using Heliolisk and Rest Goodra on a rain team, then I came across the thought "does the 1/8 damage from Dry Skin and Solar Power stack and make Heliolisk take 1/4 of its health in the sun?" So, I made a sun team, tested it out, and found that it thankfully doesn't stack. Heliolisk was already sort of known as the weather machine because all of its abilities support a weather, but sun may have been considered an issue before in some people's minds due to Dry Skin+Solar Power. Weather teams are some of the most prominent in both gens 7 and 8 pokebilities, so I wonder how this would change the metagame if it was still on the main Smogon server.
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What are the chances of Conkeldurr being added to the watchlist? Sure, it gets walled by Galarian and Kantonian Weezing, but other than that, its movepool and combination of abilities let's it 2HKO everything other than the Weezings, Cresselia, and Uxie in the metagame depending on it's set. Sure, you can scout out the set, but every time you face one, it's nearly guaranteed to force a pokemon to die. Drain, Mach, and Elemental punches, Poison Jab, Knock Off, Facade, Earthquake, and Stone Edge is a wide array of moves that causes a necessity to scout out the Conkeldurr. Sure, Hex Dragapult exists, but if you switch in on an Ice Punch or Knock Off, Conkeldurr becomes even more of a threat. You can't wall it other than the Weezings, so your only true option is to sacrifice and send out a faster pokemon that can OHKO, which Conk can just switch out on. Teleport also makes it much easier to bring in Conk as it sets up Guts with Flame Orb for no risk. Conk can even run Life Orb as many teams carry a status spreader, giving both Guts and a no recoil (on certain moves) Life Orb and Sheer Force boost. Assault Vest is also as viable ever, allowing Conk to take more hits and deal more damage. Yeah Galarian and Kantonian Weezing are consistent counters, but one or two single counters being forced onto a team to beat a pokemon is unhealthy. Sure, G Weezing is often run on Hawlucha teams, and I see why, so it's not making an otherwise unviable pokemon a metagame staple, which would be the main argument against it being put on a watchlist. However, with a lack of any true counters other than the Weezings, which don't deal much damage in return if you're facing the Assault Vest set, I believe Conk to have passed the line of being centralizing and has become overcentralizing in the metagame. It's a bit like the situation with dark Urshifu and Spectrier in OU a bit back where they were still banned despite a counter in Mandibuzz because only one pokemon being able to counter another simply isn't healthy for a metagame. I don't know how popular the metagame is, but if there is a pokebilities council, I think either suspect testing Conk or putting it on a watchlist would be a good idea because as of now, there is no pokemon other than the Weezings that counter Conkeldurr.
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I've wanted to make a post related to this pokemon for a few days now, and I've finally found the time to. No, it's not another thread complaining about Conk, it's a thread discussing Cinccino. Cinccino is one of the most used pokemon in pokebilities, but it's really difficult to optimize, and new players to the meta often fail to realize how to properly optimize it because they don't really pay too much attention to the flaws of Cinccino. First off, everyone knows that base 95 has become a rather meager attacking stat, even if backed up by a solid base 115 speed. The 95 base attack makes it miss out on a lot of kills and ranges despite the extreme power on its moves after Skill Link and Technician are taken into account. Cinccino also has struggles relating to mainly 4 moveslot syndrome and single item syndrome. First, the 4 moveslot syndrome is a pretty big deal. Tail Slap is obvious, but Bullet Seed, Rock Blast, Triple Axel, Knock Off, and U-Turn are your other options. However, all of them provide something none of the others do, whether it be utility, momentum, or coverage. Since Cinccino wants all of these, role compression isn't really an option because you have to choose only 4 moves. Single item syndrome is also really tough to work around as the item Cinccino has can severely effect team building in and of itself. Choice Band gives the extra power boost that Cinccino needs, Boots let's it avoid hazard damage, Pads allows it to stay in on Heatran, Zapdos, and Moltres, King's Rock can be used for flinch hax, and Silk Scarf boost the already crazy power of Tail Slap even more. This causes a dilemma as Cinccino struggles without any of these items (except Silk Scarf because while the power boost is helpful, it's only to one move), making it a difficult choice that restricts teambuilding by using Cinccino. Of course, Cinccino is still great in the metagame, and it always will be, but it takes intelligence to build around it and it can't be fit into many teams because it isn't a support pokemon, but rather one that needs the support and will be the main damage dealer on the team. Cinccino gets some of the highest usage in the meta for good reason, but I see it often used incorrectly because the newer players to the meta often fail to take a pokemon's flaws into consideration until they see the flaws themselves.
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Is there any possible way to play the current version of pokebilities now that pokebilities has entered gen 8? I do not see it on the random other metas server, so I have been stuck with the gen 7 version since gen 8 pokebilities was no longer OM of the month
Kris said there were too many bugs cropping up behind the scenes to maintain it on the server as a playable mod sadly.
As much as it sucks that the metagame is no longer playable, even on the ROM server, that won't stop me from looking further into the metagame to try to find more pokemon that could succeed, whether it be in gen 8 pokebilities or gen 7 pokebilities, and my most recent finding centers around a starter that can only be used in gen 7 pokebilities: Serperior.
Now, Serperior is already amazing due to its Contrary ability letting it boost to crazy levels of power, but adding Overgrow on it can be even more annoying to deal with, especially with Miracle Seed. If you take into account that a lot of Serp sets run Sub, which can assist it with getting into overgrow, it makes it even easier to get into Overgrow to deal that devastating damage.
+6 252 SpA Miracle Seed Overgrow Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Blissey in Grassy Terrain: 804-946 (112.6 - 132.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252 SpA Miracle Seed Overgrow Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Blissey: 618-727 (86.5 - 101.8%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
(Calcs for hazards wouldn't show, but I'm sure you get how lethal Serp can be to several pokemon)
Even with residual damage making Serp easier to wear down, it can actually be used in Serps favor due to Substitute or it can use Giga Drain to offset some of the residual damage it takes.
Serperior bares slight resemblance to Sceptile in a way, but when looked into, they are way different. Sceptile relies on Petaya Berry to boost, which it needs to eat in order to activate the Unburden+Overgrow combo, the combination of which being the main draw to Sceptile. While not as immediately strong, access to guaranteed setup and being able to hold items other than berries due to not having a reliance on Unburden makes Serperior far more easy and even reliable of a pokemon to use.
Now, it does have it's stone hard counters like SpDef Clef that doesn't care about it's Miracle Seed and Overgrow boosted Leaf Storms, Salamence and Dragonite without HP Ice, and Ferrothorn and Magnezone without HP Fire, but Serperior can still leave a deviating blow on the battlefield of played correctly while being worth the low maintenance required to make it work.
Compare this to a pokemon like Charizard that constantly relies on being under 33% HP in impermanent weather that takes away 1/8 of its health in order to use Blaze properly, which likely won't even pan out properly due to Charizard's frailty and extreme hatred for hazards forcing it to heal, which wastes more sun turns and makes it likely that Blaze will never get utilized properly. This makes the maintenance way too high for extremely inconsistent reward, often resulting in no reward at all, rendering Charizard as that pokemon that would be cool to see explored, but isn't worth exploring.
I'd definitely say Serperior is at least has a niche worth exploring, likely even being a genuinely solid choice in the metagame, especially in comparison to it's starter competition like Charizard and Sceptile.
Now, Serperior is already amazing due to its Contrary ability letting it boost to crazy levels of power, but adding Overgrow on it can be even more annoying to deal with, especially with Miracle Seed. If you take into account that a lot of Serp sets run Sub, which can assist it with getting into overgrow, it makes it even easier to get into Overgrow to deal that devastating damage.
+6 252 SpA Miracle Seed Overgrow Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Blissey in Grassy Terrain: 804-946 (112.6 - 132.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252 SpA Miracle Seed Overgrow Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Blissey: 618-727 (86.5 - 101.8%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
(Calcs for hazards wouldn't show, but I'm sure you get how lethal Serp can be to several pokemon)
Even with residual damage making Serp easier to wear down, it can actually be used in Serps favor due to Substitute or it can use Giga Drain to offset some of the residual damage it takes.
Serperior bares slight resemblance to Sceptile in a way, but when looked into, they are way different. Sceptile relies on Petaya Berry to boost, which it needs to eat in order to activate the Unburden+Overgrow combo, the combination of which being the main draw to Sceptile. While not as immediately strong, access to guaranteed setup and being able to hold items other than berries due to not having a reliance on Unburden makes Serperior far more easy and even reliable of a pokemon to use.
Now, it does have it's stone hard counters like SpDef Clef that doesn't care about it's Miracle Seed and Overgrow boosted Leaf Storms, Salamence and Dragonite without HP Ice, and Ferrothorn and Magnezone without HP Fire, but Serperior can still leave a deviating blow on the battlefield of played correctly while being worth the low maintenance required to make it work.
Compare this to a pokemon like Charizard that constantly relies on being under 33% HP in impermanent weather that takes away 1/8 of its health in order to use Blaze properly, which likely won't even pan out properly due to Charizard's frailty and extreme hatred for hazards forcing it to heal, which wastes more sun turns and makes it likely that Blaze will never get utilized properly. This makes the maintenance way too high for extremely inconsistent reward, often resulting in no reward at all, rendering Charizard as that pokemon that would be cool to see explored, but isn't worth exploring.
I'd definitely say Serperior is at least has a niche worth exploring, likely even being a genuinely solid choice in the metagame, especially in comparison to it's starter competition like Charizard and Sceptile.
Eggs
some days, you just can't get rid of an egg
Hi there, just letting you know that Pokebilities is playable on The Trashchannel at trashchannel.psim.us. It's a side server run by CringeMeta with a ton of OMs and OM Mashups on it (Pokebilities and a mashup called PokeAAAbilities are two of our most popular formats there).
On said side server I've also run a few NatDex PokeAAAbilities tours (NatDex Pokebilities is definitely feasible though), and there's a ton of cool dexited mons I wish we could have used in Pokebilities.
Pokebilities was recently patched on that side server, and in the process the way mega evolution works changed. Mega Evolving will no longer let you keep some of your base abilities (previously it would let you keep any that were not in the ability slot). As of now Mega Evolving will replace all of your abilities with the Mega's ability.
Holy crap please have Kris take a look and see if this is a feasible fix for the main server. That would be incredible
Thank you! Was looking for a place to have some friendly challenges and this is perfect.
One thing that I never realized when reading all the pages in this forum is that nobody ever mentioned Zoom Lens for Dracozolt. Sure, items like Life Orb or Lum Berry (for both the Weezings Will-O-Wisps) are great, but Zoom Lens rids it (mostly) of its main issue in the meta, inconsistency with its accuracy. Already having essentially +2 speed in sand and an effective Choice Band in Hustle means that Dracozolt doesn't really require much more power or speed if you already have the support to set up sand like Hippo or T-Tar. Zoom Lens fixes the accuracy drop from Hustle while not getting rid of its power boost. On 100% moves like Outrage, Dragon Claw, and Bolt Beak that get dropped down to 80% accurate from Hustle, the accuracy gets raised back up to 96%, and on Fire Blast and Draco Meteor (the two special moves I've ever seen Dracozolt use), it brings them up past 100% accuracy due to the fact that Hustle doesn't effect special moves. I believe this significantly effects the inconsistency factor that Dracozolt has, making it much less of an issue for Dracozolt and making it a huge roadblock to any person who doesn't have one of the Weezings out against it.
Zoom Lens only works if you move last. Wide Lens will boost your accuracy without condition, but it only bumps Dragon Claw and Bolt Beak up to 88%.
Ok, I didn't know that before, so thank you for correcting me. However, while the accuracy boost isn't nearly as good with the Wide Lens compared to the Zoom Lens, having 88% is still surprisingly much better than 80%. On paper, it doesn't seem too much better, but in practice, one often hits many more Fire Blasts than Stone Edges or Hydro Pumps despite only having a 5% accuracy difference, so an 8% difference will still help a lot when it comes to Dracozolt's inconsistency issue
I was doing some digging to find some differences between gen 7 and gen 8 pokebilities, new threats from gen 8 and threats that aren't in the Sword and Shield dex specifically. When I was scrolling through the pokemon, I remembered Toxtricity as it had been mentioned on the server for getting a nice Snarl boost. That started making me think about what happens. Would Punk Rock or Technician activate first? If Punk Rock activates first, that means that Snarl doesn't get the Technician boost, which is harmful to the power of Snarl. With only the Punk Rock boost, Snarl has an effective 71 BP rounding down while with Technician activating first, the BP is an effective 107 rounding down. The difference in power is like comparing Rock Slide to Stone Edge, a monumental power boost. However, Snarl doesn't have any drawbacks in terms of PP or accuracy, and could significantly alter Toxtricity's place as a niche mon in the metagame. While a 71 BP with the add on of possibly crippling special attackers isn't anything to slouch at, I can see the possibility of the lower power if Punk Rock activates first making Tox miss out on important KOs like against Bronzong or Alolawak, the latter of which is a really solid check without Snarl as it is immune to Boomburst, immune to Overdrive (Lighning Rod), and resistant to Sludge Bomb/Wave.
Here are some calcs, done with the boosts accounted for:
252 SpA Punk Rock Toxtricity Snarl vs. 252 HP/252+SpD Marowak Alola: 178-210 (54.9-64.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.
This is with a SpDef set, which Alolawak nearly never runs due to the offensive set just being that powerful.
252 SpA Punk Rock Toxtricity Snarl vs. 0 HP/0 SpD Marowak-Alola: 256-302 (98-115.7% -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
Dragapult is similar, but only resists Overdrive instead of being immune. If a Dragapult tried to switch in without being careful, it could get smacked by a Snarl and crippled, making it likely need to U-Turn.
252 SpA Punk Rock Toxtricity Snarl vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Dragapult: 184-218 (48.4-57.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery.
Yet again, a bulky set that the pokemon in question nearly never runs.
252 SpA Punk Rock Toxtricity Snarl vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Dragapult: 272-320 (85.8-100.9%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
Another niche pokemon the extra power could be extremely helpful against is Chandy. Whereas Overdrive (Scarf Timid) never 2HKOs bulky Chandy, but Snarl is a 91.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers if it decides to not run Boots for some idiotic reason. If it does run Boots, though, it's a clean 2HKO. These feats couldn't be accomplished as well with a base 71 power that Punk Rock activating first would cause.
My point is the extra power can be monumental with grabbing important KOs, so knowing which ability activates first out of Technician and Punk Rock could be of monumental importance to determine whether to try to hit these pokemon on the switch or just switch out. That and the fact that without Technician, Snarl is just simply much weaker than otherwise
Here are some calcs, done with the boosts accounted for:
252 SpA Punk Rock Toxtricity Snarl vs. 252 HP/252+SpD Marowak Alola: 178-210 (54.9-64.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.
This is with a SpDef set, which Alolawak nearly never runs due to the offensive set just being that powerful.
252 SpA Punk Rock Toxtricity Snarl vs. 0 HP/0 SpD Marowak-Alola: 256-302 (98-115.7% -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
Dragapult is similar, but only resists Overdrive instead of being immune. If a Dragapult tried to switch in without being careful, it could get smacked by a Snarl and crippled, making it likely need to U-Turn.
252 SpA Punk Rock Toxtricity Snarl vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Dragapult: 184-218 (48.4-57.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery.
Yet again, a bulky set that the pokemon in question nearly never runs.
252 SpA Punk Rock Toxtricity Snarl vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Dragapult: 272-320 (85.8-100.9%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
Another niche pokemon the extra power could be extremely helpful against is Chandy. Whereas Overdrive (Scarf Timid) never 2HKOs bulky Chandy, but Snarl is a 91.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers if it decides to not run Boots for some idiotic reason. If it does run Boots, though, it's a clean 2HKO. These feats couldn't be accomplished as well with a base 71 power that Punk Rock activating first would cause.
My point is the extra power can be monumental with grabbing important KOs, so knowing which ability activates first out of Technician and Punk Rock could be of monumental importance to determine whether to try to hit these pokemon on the switch or just switch out. That and the fact that without Technician, Snarl is just simply much weaker than otherwise
I can't say for certain if this is how it's intended to work, but it does seem that Technician applies first and Punk Rock second.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/trashchannel-gen8pokebilities-3276
I tried this twice with Technician as the selected Ability and with Punk Rock selected, and it made no difference (the second attempt even did the low-roll of 98%). So yes, Snarl is legit on Toxtricity.
Got it! Thank you for informing me
Ayo I wanna play more, but it seems the server has been death for a long time