Qualities of a Viable Pokémon in Doubles (Discussion/Questions)

[Hematite]

Thread approved by the doubles mods!

Hello!
I'm trying to learn about balancing Pokémon (for me, this is mostly in the context of Fakemon and mods, but even just specific examples of these in practice would be worth discussing and reading!), and I had some questions about what goes into making a Pokémon usable in doubles. Even if a Pokémon wouldn't necessarily make Doubles OU by usage, I'm interested in what it takes to give something a niche - making sure even weak Pokémon wouldn't be totally ridiculous to consider for a team.

But I... don't actually know that much about doubles, haha.
I've been taking notes and observing various threads, so I have a few things down already! But I don't have a lot of experience actually playing, and I thought it would be best to ask here.
I just have a few general questions about the kinds of Pokémon that are good in doubles and what makes them useful, and I think it would be interesting to see what people here have to say on them!

FIRST TOPIC: DEFINING NICHES and VIABLE ARCHETYPES

I was mostly wondering if anyone had any tips on what makes a Pokémon generally usable in doubles, especially qualities that would make something that's otherwise weak worth considering for a team.
So I was just wondering... what singles archetypes are typically bad in doubles, and how could those kinds of Pokémon be made more usable for doubles without changing their stats?
Here are some examples based on what I know so far:

It looks like many singles-based walls like Toxapex are usually the worst off in doubles, since stall itself isn't viable - but some Pokémon with very similar builds can thrive in doubles if they have a relevant enough niche, like Amoonguss with Rage Powder and sleep. What other qualities can contribute to making defensively-oriented Pokémon useful in doubles?

Meanwhile, I'm given to understand that most offensive Pokémon tend to be a lot bulkier in doubles; since Pokémon aren't able to avoid taking hits completely even if they score one-hit KOs, the fast, frail setup sweeper archetype is less successful in doubles.
That said, something like Zeraora is fast and frail, but it's successful anyway because of its support movepool (Fake Out and Snarl) - what kinds of utility would be beneficial to a Pokémon like that?

On the same note, what qualities wouldn't make much of a difference? As important as redirection is in doubles, I'm sure something frail like Zeraora wouldn't be carried as far if that was its best support option - but conversely, something like Toxapex might? (Er, would Toxapex be good if it had redirection? Again, I'm not experienced in doubles, which is why I'm asking this here!)
Basically, I'm interested in learning not only which options are useful in general but which options are effective for specific archetypes.

SECOND TOPIC: DETRIMENTAL QUALITIES

If we're talking about reasons a Pokémon might be bad in doubles... what kinds of qualities can realistically be used as an intentional limiting factor for something strong (without making it outright bad), and what kinds are just a total death sentence? Like, in singles, an obvious way to hinder something would be to make it slow - but in doubles, speed control is everywhere, so it's easy to work around that. On the other hand, being too passive is a bad thing in singles, and I think that's even worse in doubles (hence slow-paced walls not working). What would you consider to be bad qualities on a doubles Pokémon, and which are workable when everything else is good/which are totally unsurmountable?
(As mentioned, part of the reason I'm asking all of this is in the interest of balancing Pokémon of my own... so another way to look at this: is there anything to avoid outright when building Pokémon for a doubles-oriented meta? Especially with respect to stats - if you're starting from a singles-oriented Pokémon, then as discussed in the first topic, there are moves and Abilities that are doubles-specific and can give them a boost in those areas. On the other hand, there's not really any way to have different base stats just for doubles! Unless you're . But most Pokémon are not.)

THIRD TOPIC: MOVESETS

Something the singles-based CAP does when they're balancing their creations is to design the competitive movesets they expect the Pokémon to run. I think this is one of the most significant steps of the process, and following their threads has been a huge help in learning about not only which tools make Pokémon successful in singles but how those tools fit together.
That said, I don't know as much about building sets for doubles, so I have some questions on how to start with that:

- This might be a dumb question, but: is type coverage compression considered less important in doubles, since you can pick and choose your targets and because each Pokémon always have an ally on the field to target the Pokémon it can't?
- How do utility moves and type coverage compare, or which has priority when they're in conflict? Is it worth running a utility move if it means worse coverage on the same set? In what situations would a Pokémon rather have coverage than utility, and is it more important to have good neutral coverage or good super effective coverage?
- Are spread moves always better than single-target attacks? What makes a Pokémon prefer a spread move that's lower in power (like Rock Slide vs Stone Edge), and at what cutoff, if any, does the raw power of a single-target move become more important? Conversely, does the presence of Wide Guard make it more necessary to have single-target moves? (Can a set get by with no single-target attacks, or will a Pokémon ever prioritize, say, Flamethrower or Fire Blast over Heat Wave given that all three are options?)
- What kinds of sets/roles should always be assumed to carry Protect and what kinds can get away with not having it? Especially on a non-Choiced Pokémon, what situations might make a fourth move more important than Protect?
- And since I just mentioned Choice items... when are those run and when aren't they?
- In general, is there anything else that would be useful to have in mind when planning sets and distributing relevant moves?

FOURTH TOPIC: HAZARDS?

This is probably the most specific question here:
I know entry hazards aren't that relevant in doubles, but I've also seen teams make use of Stealth Rock, Toxic Spikes and I think Sticky Web, particularly in 6v6 Smogon Doubles tiers rather than VGC.
What makes a team or a Pokémon want to run a hazard?
Also (especially for Pokémon with double-weaknesses to Rock, which used to be really crippling in singles, and now those Pokémon basically always run HDB over any other item), to what extent does the fear of hazards impact a given Pokémon's viability? Are Rock weaknesses less important? And do Rock-weak Pokémon not run HDB now that it's an option? In singles, I've seen people advise "always calc assuming rocks" - do you also always calc assuming rocks in doubles?

FIFTH TOPIC: UTILITY

Last thing: I've amassed a list of the kinds of moves, Abilities and general utility options that might be relevant in doubles, and I was wondering if I was missing anything significant from this list!

Hide

* status setters (mostly burn, paralysis and sleep; less poison than singles)
* Taunt, Encore and other move-binding effects
* Trick Room, Tailwind and Icy Wind/Electroweb
* weather and terrain autosetters and Pokémon that can take advantage of those kinds of field effects
(* maybe Gravity?)
* ways to mitigate incoming damage (aforementioned burn, but also Intimidate and Snarl)
* screens
* ways to raise allies’ stats
* Helping Hand
* Defiant and Competitive because of the prevalence of stat reductions
* trapping (including Perish Trap sometimes - is that only in VGC?)
* spread moves
* priority moves
* Fake Out (which also makes Inner Focus and Shield Dust useful) and redirection (which also makes the redirection immunity from some moves and Abilities useful)
* moves that break protection
* Quick Guard and Wide Guard
* healing (self-healing and Heal Pulse alike? and is Life Dew ever used in doubles, or is that only for raids?)
* possibly Heal Block?
* boosting moves (apparently, something like Swords Dance or Nasty Plot might be rarer, but ones that can boost defenses and Speed are good?), but usually only on bulky users

(On that note, is there, like, a hierarchy of importance for these? How would you rank them? Or does it not make sense to rank these against each other at all?)
Also on this subject, if anyone has any insight on which kinds of Pokémon are best equipped to use each of these/what it takes for one of them to be relevant (or even just examples of the best Pokémon for each one), that would be super useful!! I know that's a lot to ask because it's a long list, but anything that jumps out in particular and might not be common sense to an unfamiliar player would be super useful.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read all of this!
I look forward to seeing anything you have to say!

 

[xzern]

This is a great thread, but I cant answer all of your questions because im not the only doubles player with opinions.

It looks like many singles-based walls like Toxapex are usually the worst off in doubles, since stall itself isn't viable - but some Pokémon with very similar builds can thrive in doubles if they have a relevant enough niche, like Amoonguss with Rage Powder and sleep. What other qualities can contribute to making defensively-oriented Pokémon useful in doubles?

When it comes to traditional singles walls in doubles formats, they need to have some kind of extra factor that allows the player to requisition value out of the slot. This is true about literally any mon on your team, but for defensive options, this factor is generally supportive in nature. Like you said, Amoonguss is a superb defensive mon in doubles for redirection and sleep, two factors which can make it nearly unrealistic to beat without planning ahead in the teambuilder. If you were to make a doubles CAP and you wanted it to be a defensive option, a very easy way to ensure its viability would be to give it redirection, decent defensive typing, and maybe some extra support power. Redirectors are sometimes impossible to ignore, thats the whole point, and are therefore valuable supports. See Jirachi, which is legal in singles but banned in doubles for being too strong of a redirector.

Let's pick on Toxapex for a bit, since you mentioned him. Without some kind of supporting characteristic, defensive mons are typically irrelevant on the field. Of course, he would be a lot better with redirection, but lack of redirection doesn't always break the viability of defensive mons. Toxapex's proposed doubles niche at the moment is as a toxic spikes setter; this is irrelevant because both Mew and Weezing can do this while not being dead weight after the fact. Mew has a large swath of support options to choose from, most notably tailwind and a fast fake out. Weezing's Neutralizing Gas poses a disadvantage state to certain opposing matchups when he is on the field. Toxapex may be a fantastic switch-in, but users of intimidate, particularly Incineroar, offer more to be gained on the switch. There are also more valuable bulky waters, particularly Blastoise and Milotic. But this isn't to say that just being a wall is not a valuable feature in the right hands. For example, Ferrothorn can wall many mons and checkmate certain teams that aren't prepared to ohko or do enough burst to him. The same can be said about BW Jellicent. And, of course my obligatory disclaimer, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that Toxapex is not an awful choice and simply nobody has found a proper way to utilize his potential to the fullest (or maybe i just havent heard about it. im not really in the loop.)

This also ties into your point about limiting factors. Possibly one of the most unfortunate limiting factors any given mon can have is lack of pressure. An egregious example is Wobbuffet. While his ability to mindlessly get a free kill with trapping is considered noncompetitive in singles, playing around his gimmick in doubles stipulates that you need simply to not hit it and double target its partner instead. This puts Wobbuffet's unfortunate, yet loyal trainer into a 1v2 situation. This logic is analogous to other singles walls such as Toxapex, Blissey, and Skarmory, to name a few. The idea here is that these mons take hits really well, but the option is there to just not hit them. Of course these mons can still be used (and I believe Chansey saw use in sm,) but generally speaking, the main takeaway here is that defensive mons should have some utility to their name and might want to be considered more of a support.