I fully support that. This not only improves neutral coverage by a ton. Most of the Pokémon bug/ghost don't hit neutrally (but that dark/ghost would) are the regional birds - so, only Noctowl, Braviary and Unfezant, basically. Meanwhile, bug/ghost prevents several set-up sweepers from risking a set-up even without a prior NP boost - most notably Tyranitar, Scrafty, Weavile, Obstagoon, Hydreigon, Urshifu, Zarude, Crawdaunt, Absol, Shiftry, and I'm probably forgetting a few. As good as Noctowl/Braviary can get with Dynamax, I generally think the aforementioned dark types are more dangerous overall.
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
Format Discussion Pokemon Sword & Shield Random Battle Sets
- Thread starter Annika
- Start date
- Status
Still on the subject of the new horses, I really think Spectrier should get the Naganadel treatment, i.e. be lowered to level 76. Yes, it's frail (shadow sneak, sucker punch) and its coverage is not that great, but nevertheless, that base speed + that base special attack + nasty plot + even more special attack boosts on each kill, IMO, really overpowered for that format.
Similarly with Calyrex-Shadow, I think it should be level 72, not 74, thanks to that good coverage (ghost/bug is decent, psyshock gives special tank coverage) and the grim neigh's effect combined with - again - its ridiculous base speed and special attack. Sure, more vulnerable than Spectrier to shadow sneak and sucker punch, but at the same time, it has an even easier time to set up thanks to greater bulk than Spectrier. Not to mention it can dynamax to set up psychic terrain and save itself from those priority moves - even being able to survive one in the process - for a few turns. At least, Necro-DW (currently 74), despite its far better bulk and greater coverage, is more easily dealt with because it's slow.
Similarly with Calyrex-Shadow, I think it should be level 72, not 74, thanks to that good coverage (ghost/bug is decent, psyshock gives special tank coverage) and the grim neigh's effect combined with - again - its ridiculous base speed and special attack. Sure, more vulnerable than Spectrier to shadow sneak and sucker punch, but at the same time, it has an even easier time to set up thanks to greater bulk than Spectrier. Not to mention it can dynamax to set up psychic terrain and save itself from those priority moves - even being able to survive one in the process - for a few turns. At least, Necro-DW (currently 74), despite its far better bulk and greater coverage, is more easily dealt with because it's slow.
Is it possible to add Hydration to Whiscash ability pool? In a dynamax meta that good looking fish could set up on will o wispes and toxic and then get healed in the rain he set up with max geyser. I'm not talking about 100% of the time but I think now I can be exploited quite a bit more.
Can we add roost to tapu koko set, its def better fitting than subs, since tapu koko isn't too bulky to make subs efectively, but cm+roost works really good and yes can we remove subs on kokO?
I'm here to suggest putting Dig on Leafeon
I know it sounds stupid but in a Metagame that has Dynamax in it Leafeon would greatly benefit from a Ground Type move like Dig. Dig not only lets you bypass annyoing fire type pokemon but also Steel types which are often a brick wall for leafeon to deal with even after you got a couple of swords dance boosts up.
Leafeon's current Movepool in gen 8 Randombattles is a little bit lacking and really struggles against Fire&Steel types
Double-Edge, Knock Off, Leaf Blade, Swords Dance, Synthesis, X-Scissor
Your best bet against fire&Steel types is knock off - a 97BP move which isnt stab and looses its Boost after using it once.
Most of the times you want to dynamax your Leafeon after you got a Swords dance of, especially because Leafeon has such a great speed tier in Randombattles (217, when sun is up 434)
Another Problem about Leafeon is that it has very bad Special defense but with Max Quake boosting your Sp.def you can avoid being OhKOd or 2 Hit KO'D by strong special attackers.
I can really see a Life Orb Leafeon putting in a lot of work and Sweeping through Teams with the addition of Dig to its Movepool.
Since Leafeon has such a great Defense Stat you're almost guaranteed to get a Swords Dance of against a physical attacker. And even if your Dynamax is over you still have a Ground type attack that can hit Fire/Steels - Dig is not useless outside of Dynamax and definetely superior to X-Scissor!
Here are some Calcs to prove that Dig Leafeon is very strong after it got a Swords Dance up and can even OHKO other dynamax Pokemon:
1. +2 Lvl 88 84 Atk Life Orb Leafeon Max Quake vs. Lvl 80 84 HP / 84 Def Dynamax Heatran: 967-1139 (174.5 - 205.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
2. +2 Lvl 88 84 Atk Life Orb Leafeon Max Quake vs. Lvl 80 84 HP / 84 Def Dynamax Excadrill: 733-863 (119.3 - 140.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
3. Lvl 88 84 Atk Life Orb Leafeon Max Quake vs. Lvl 72 84 HP / 84 Def Zacian-Crowned: 250-296 (99.6 - 117.9%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
4. +2 Lvl 88 84 Atk Life Orb Leafeon Max Quake vs. Lvl 82 84 HP / 84 Def Dynamax Incineroar: 533-629 (91.8 - 108.4%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
5. +2 Lvl 88 84 Atk Life Orb Leafeon Max Quake vs. Lvl 72 84 HP / 84 Def Dynamax Reshiram: 559-660 (106.2 - 125.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Keep in mind these are just a couple of examples and of course not all steel and fire types get Ohkod by a boosted Max Quake from Leafeon.
Lastly you might think that Dig is a useless move because it takes 2 turns to use but I'd like to mention that there is one more Pokemon in randombattles who also has a 2 turn move and It's mostly because it can use It's Max-Move with it - Landorus-Therian (And Gyarados with Bounce as well - works similar to Lando-T).
Of course Lando-T gets the Stab boost on Max airstream and Fly + a Speed boost from Max Airstream but this should still prove my point that 2-turn moves are not necessarily bad in Randombattles.
Also a little bonus from using a 2 turn move like Dig or Fly is that you can Stall a turn of dynamax from your opponents Pokemon.
I know it sounds stupid but in a Metagame that has Dynamax in it Leafeon would greatly benefit from a Ground Type move like Dig. Dig not only lets you bypass annyoing fire type pokemon but also Steel types which are often a brick wall for leafeon to deal with even after you got a couple of swords dance boosts up.
Leafeon's current Movepool in gen 8 Randombattles is a little bit lacking and really struggles against Fire&Steel types
Double-Edge, Knock Off, Leaf Blade, Swords Dance, Synthesis, X-Scissor
Your best bet against fire&Steel types is knock off - a 97BP move which isnt stab and looses its Boost after using it once.
Most of the times you want to dynamax your Leafeon after you got a Swords dance of, especially because Leafeon has such a great speed tier in Randombattles (217, when sun is up 434)
Another Problem about Leafeon is that it has very bad Special defense but with Max Quake boosting your Sp.def you can avoid being OhKOd or 2 Hit KO'D by strong special attackers.
I can really see a Life Orb Leafeon putting in a lot of work and Sweeping through Teams with the addition of Dig to its Movepool.
Since Leafeon has such a great Defense Stat you're almost guaranteed to get a Swords Dance of against a physical attacker. And even if your Dynamax is over you still have a Ground type attack that can hit Fire/Steels - Dig is not useless outside of Dynamax and definetely superior to X-Scissor!
Here are some Calcs to prove that Dig Leafeon is very strong after it got a Swords Dance up and can even OHKO other dynamax Pokemon:
1. +2 Lvl 88 84 Atk Life Orb Leafeon Max Quake vs. Lvl 80 84 HP / 84 Def Dynamax Heatran: 967-1139 (174.5 - 205.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
2. +2 Lvl 88 84 Atk Life Orb Leafeon Max Quake vs. Lvl 80 84 HP / 84 Def Dynamax Excadrill: 733-863 (119.3 - 140.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
3. Lvl 88 84 Atk Life Orb Leafeon Max Quake vs. Lvl 72 84 HP / 84 Def Zacian-Crowned: 250-296 (99.6 - 117.9%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
4. +2 Lvl 88 84 Atk Life Orb Leafeon Max Quake vs. Lvl 82 84 HP / 84 Def Dynamax Incineroar: 533-629 (91.8 - 108.4%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
5. +2 Lvl 88 84 Atk Life Orb Leafeon Max Quake vs. Lvl 72 84 HP / 84 Def Dynamax Reshiram: 559-660 (106.2 - 125.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Keep in mind these are just a couple of examples and of course not all steel and fire types get Ohkod by a boosted Max Quake from Leafeon.
Lastly you might think that Dig is a useless move because it takes 2 turns to use but I'd like to mention that there is one more Pokemon in randombattles who also has a 2 turn move and It's mostly because it can use It's Max-Move with it - Landorus-Therian (And Gyarados with Bounce as well - works similar to Lando-T).
Of course Lando-T gets the Stab boost on Max airstream and Fly + a Speed boost from Max Airstream but this should still prove my point that 2-turn moves are not necessarily bad in Randombattles.
Also a little bonus from using a 2 turn move like Dig or Fly is that you can Stall a turn of dynamax from your opponents Pokemon.
Last edited:
Unfortunately, Roost + 3 attacks is something that can be generated, which is quite bad on Tapu Koko which is level 80 and has less Special Attack than Attack. However, there are measures in place to prevent Substitute + 3 attacks, which is why Substitute was selected over Roost in this case. The same can't be applied to Roost as there are offensive Pokemon that are perfectly fine with Roost + 3 attacks because they have the offensive stats. Special Tapu Koko needs Calm Mind to be effective, so unfortunately Roost isn't an option.
Can we remove stall mons? It's not very fun with them.
Hi! Stall is part of competitive Pokemon, it's a fair strategy and widely used. On Randbats, we try to decide on the best movepools for each mon, so if we consider the best strategy for one is stall, we wont change that just because it can be "less fun". To be completely fair, randbats is not even close one of the stalliest formats, and the number of pure stall mons is pretty low
Last edited:
I had it with out SD and it seemed fine almost underwhelming compared to the other.
Idk if other people feel this way but belly drum slurpuff is unfair and unfun. drain punch puts it over the top. lead slurpuff is almost always a sweep. also any stall biased mon is just fodder instantly. because of the recovery of drain punch it becomes almost unbeatable with out priority status or a bulky dynamax poison or ghost type which is a toss up if you even have. Removing drain punch makes counter play much more reliable also makes toxic a viable option on a switched in slurpuff. Just my 2cents as playing with and vs this mon is not interesting or fun.
First of all, i´ll ask you to comment in one single post next time instead of 3 one after the other. You can edit the first one if no one answered you and it will be fine :)
Now, we dont nerf movepools just because that makes the pokemon better. On the contrary, we try to find the best possible random movepool for them. What we do is nerf the level of the pokemon. Usually we just did that based on tiering, but since tiers don´t have Dynamax and we do, now we are balancing more subjectively. We know that Zacian-C may be overwhleming and its level will probably be reduced in the future. Slurpuff can be lowered aswell if it shows a big win ratio, but so far we consider it beatable and not that dangerous, like a lot of our potential sweepers.
okay thanks for getting back to me. sorry about the posts.
On Belly Drum Slurpuff, it's definitely insanely good in the right match-up and can singlehandedly win games. That said, there are some Pokemon that just completely shut it down, even after a Belly Drum-- Aegislash, Doublade, Shedinja, any Unaware mon. Also, with chip strong Bullet Punches from Scizor, Metagross, or even Machamp can revenge kill, and you can sometimes counterplay with Dynamax (though that usually results in a loss since your opponent can freely clean with Dynamax later). I don't think Belly Drum Slurpuff is game-breakingly good in the environment of Randoms, which is kinda inherently match-up reliant and thus results in brainless 6-0's from lead more often than official tiers. (this isn't bashing Randoms but just stating a fact of how it works, the staff do an awesome job keeping it balanced and fun.) I think it's similar to a Pokemon like Volcarona, Bellossom, or Eiscue in Randoms, they can setup on a lot and be absolutely devastating, but they have their hard stops and are definitely not broken in the context of a random meta. It's Randoms, sometimes you're gonna get a team that's 6-0'd by Slurpuff, Zacian, or even like Drifblim or Bellossom. That doesn't mean those Pokemon are broken, it means you got unlucky.
Last edited:
I think belly drum gdarm should be dropped, there are very few situations where you can actually pull it off due to being a really frail ice type with weakness to rocks, scarf tactics is just better and should be the only gdarm set imo
Unsure if this is the best place to post this, but I just got team with Lead Rocks Pinsir + SR Skarmory (screenshot below), which ends up being a dead moveslot. Would it be possible to prevent doubling up of hazards like SR (haven't gotten dual Sticky Webs before, but it falls in the same boat), though I get why it might not want to limit stackable ones like Spikes/Toxic Spikes.
This already exists. It just doesn't work sometimes. It cannot be fixed further.
in this specific case, it seems brave bird was rolled last. meaning, all the other moves were rejected for it to get brave bird. it doesnt have anything left to roll if it rejects stealth rock so it can't.
I don't think I need to explain why a set like this is awful but I will anyway.
Double status moves with T-Wave and Yawn isn't awful, but quite unfavourable.
One single type of screen AND without light clay?
It looks like this was supposed to be some kind of infiltrator set.
This only occurs if you generated another screens setter beforehand, causing one of the screens to be rejected (but not the other, because it only has five moves). This isn't fixable without allowing multiple dual screens setters again.
May I ask why it isn't fixable?
Because meowstic-male cannot specifically be exempt from rejecting multiple cases of screens per team. The only ways to fix it would be to add two or three more moves to it (because of various rejections currently happening with Thunder Wave making just adding Toxic not an option), or to allow multiple screens setters per team, neither of which is optimal.
I just had a Thick Fat Snorlax with Curse and three attacking moves. While Thick Fat has some defensive utility, I feel like Immunity would be a huge benefit to Curselax sets without Rest. Without Immunity, non-Rest Curselax has no way to get around Toxic. Since Curselax is generally meant to rely on its bulk to stay in a few turns, that extra damage adds up, putting it at a comparatively bigger disadvantage than other setup users. While Immunity is much less useful for ChestoRest, RestTalk, and CB sets, the former two for obvious reasons and the latter because it's not meant to stay in as much, I do think it would be nice to have it on those specific Curselax sets without Rest.
Removing hazards is great but the real reason to give eleki rapid spin is for the speed boost which it definitely needs
- Status