Relying on resistances for switches rather than a generic wall

[Little Green Yoda]

This was brought up in the "Blissey Substitutes" thread but I felt it's worthwhile enough of a topic to not get jumbled in with the Blissey hate posts.

At least two posters mentioned the use of resistances rather than a generalized wall in that thread. And in the prelude to D/P, a number of people were talking about how resistances will take a much larger role than in ADV.

Obviously, resistances + prediction will stop Choice attackers as well as (or perhaps even better than) a multi-purpose wall. My question is, for people who use this tactic, how do you deal with non-Choice attackers, particularly the ones that have very good type coverage with their attacks?

Do you have a generalized wall on the team as a back-up? Or do you utilize high speed or priority moves on your switch-in Pokemon to KO/scare away the threat?

For example, switching in something like Swampert into a predicted Infernape Flare Blitz is going to be temporary relief at best if the monkey isn't Choice'd and happens to carry Grass Knot. Switching again just allows the Infernape user to keep the initiative and possibly rack up Spikes/SR damage on your team.

Is there just an assumption that non-Choice sweepers are usually Life Orb'd and the recoil will just take of the sweeper eventually?

 

[kamikaen]

I'd say your first goal would be to check out the moveset. For example, switch your Swampert in to take the Flare Blitz, then switch Gengar in to take the Grass Knot or Close Combat. If Ape switches on the turn you put Gengar in, you know that Swampert can act as your counter from now on. But these kind of resistance team things (I read Aldaron's RMT thing) really need to have that sort of thing covered in the teambuilding phase. If you only have Swampert and Garchomp on your team who can take any kind of Ape hit, yet you've noticed that this is a special set (with NP/Flamethethrower/HP Ice/Grassknot), there's not a whole lot you can do about it.

 

[Blue Harvest]

I had a team with at least two resistances to every type in the game. The problem was pokes with varieties of attacks could usually find holes in the resistance defense grid. Its better to just have a few "all purpose" walls. Its unlikely whatever you're fighting can't OHKO your entire team after all.

 

[prettyboiswagggg]

conceptually, it sounds great: lose the predictability of generics like the all-too common bliss/skarm/cress etc., but who here can actually say they've a team of dual-types resisting and countering everything against which their typed?

scizor doesn't beat everything maggy just because it doesn't have flamethrower.

 

[astrohawke]

Utilizing resistances really isn't nearly as effective a defensive method as having general purpose walls like blissey. This is unfortunate because even offensive teams needs some form of defense mechanism when they have to switch between pokemon and this is their best option.

There's only 2 reasons why you would choose to use resistance based defenses rather than wall based.

1) You really hate stalling of any kind. A turn where you're not pounding the opponent is a wasted turn for you.
2) You love to use prediction because utilizing resistances is all about correct prediction.

As previous posters have stated, even if a pokemon can resist one move, it may not be able to resist another from the same pokemon. The result is switching continuously to absorb resisted attacks. I've been faced with this situation a lot of times. Essentially what you are forced to do is keep switching between resistances until a pokemon that is faster is given the window to switch in and threaten to KO your opponent before they can KO you.

As you can imagine, this becomes extremely tedious and one misprediction would cost you a pokemon. I expect infernape to grass knot my swampert so I go to salamence...only to eat an unexpected HP ice because I have been outpredicted.

Having just a few walls can ease up on the prediction element a lot. Instead of switching around and waiting for starmie to use thunderbolt so I can switch in my scarfchomp and KO, all the while fearing predicted ice beams, I can just send in blissey with no fear of anything and force it to switch out 100% of the time. The more walls you have, the less you have to predict. Obviously if you have too many walls you hinder your ability to kill your opponent so a balance is always good. 2-3 walls to cover as much as you can, then use resistances from your sweepers to cover the rest make a good team.

Of course good players with prediction can be successful with just using resistances but for those beginning, a balanced team is best. In fact good players using balanced teams would probably be even more successful and consistent with wins but they choose not to use it because they either hate stall or love prediction.

 

[Fishin]

As someone in another topic mentioned, you also have the option of chain switching - switching Swampert in on a predicted Fire Blast, then switching something like Crobat in on a Grass Knot. Of course, that's risky since you're giving your opponent a chance to predict you, but at points it's the only way to beat a non-choice attacker if you're just relying on resistances. Personally, I prefer walls, but relying on resistances works to an extent. Pity there are so few Dragon resists, though.

 

[scwizard]

One of the problems with having no special wall is that specsmence hurts a bucketload.

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

Who gives a shit about Salamence when 4/6th of the team outspeeds it?!?!

 

[X-Act]

We already do this to wall physical attacks. There's nothing in the game that's close to Blissey's Special Defenses from the physical side. So people rely on resistances. For example, if Skarmory weren't part-Steel, I'm sure it would be very underused.

 

[majesty]

I switch crobat for a lot of resistances, such as against fighting types. If I see an infernape whilst I have my hippow out, I know a GK or CC is coming so I switch to crobat.

 

[Rodger]

I used to use a team that really had no set wall except maybe Vaporeon. Idea I had when I made it was to have as many immunities as possible. Ended up with either an immunity or a resistance to everything. Initial team I made for this had Gengar, Heatran, Vaporeon, Spiritomb, Garchomp, and Tauros. Vaporeon had HP Electric which actually allowed it to, with its defenses, go toe-to-toe with Starmie and scare it off if it had Thunderbolt. Or just outright scare it otherwise. Gengar was a scarf'd revenge killer/Hypnosis lead. Had HP ice for certain scarf'd/dancing dragons. Heatran was Life Orb'd. Garchomp was a Yache Berry Swords Dancer. Spiritomb was a CM Sweeper. Tauros had a Choice Band.

Ended up changing this a lot overtime, but the Vaporeon, Gengar, and Heatran remained constant while I tried different Dark, Ground, and Normal types in the remaining slots. Handled pretty well until the stall teams started showing up...

 

[eric the espeon]

salamence and garados are very good non wall switchins against phsycl attckers due to intimidate and resisting a surprising number of common attcking types

 

[Great Sage]

Usually, I have generalized walls, because they are overall much easier to use and require little effort. Offensive teams can often try to rely on resistances, though.

 

[Nekada]

I try to make sure that my team mates can cover each other's weaknesses, even the weaknesses of the supposed walls. I then try to make sure that the sweeper carries a move that threatens what it switches in on, e.g. Starmie w/thunderbolt for waters or Weavile w/ Night Slash for Zam/ ghosts.

It does quickly begin to take its toll but there's enough power behind the return attacks usually that you can finish them off before they can get make use of it.

 

[Mekkah]

We already do this to wall physical attacks. There's nothing in the game that's close to Blissey's Special Defenses from the physical side. So people rely on resistances. For example, if Skarmory weren't part-Steel, I'm sure it would be very underused.

This. Even dedicated physical walls such as Gliscor and Skarmory need massive EV investment and then still they are sitting ducks against overpowering neutral attacks such as Tyranitar's Stone Edge in Skarmory's case. You'll find that Blissey can stay in and beat most Special Attackers one on one, while Skarmory gets scared if anything sets up on him and uses Whirlwind.

 

[xBLUEx]

well, this might sound odd but, my sp. def wall is a togekiss. despite the fact that most special attkers or sweepers have thunderbolt or ice beam, togekiss is very effective. it can take 3 thunderbolts or ice beams, which i think is incredable. i use the toxic, protect, air slash, roost moveset. it hurts them a lot. so thats how i handle type coverage.

 

[noob3]

I just use pokemons that are good with eachother and they help eachother out in battle and then they slap hands when I win. This is the key to victory, your pokemons have to have great friendships.

 

[umbarsc]

Who gives a shit about Salamence when 4/6th of the team outspeeds it?!?!

Who gives a shit about who outspeeds who when nothing really can switch in safely on it? Also, Salamence is decently beefy, and even moreso with Intimidate, so unless you're striking with Ice or STAB Dragon attacks, it's not going to roll over and die.

I like to use generic walls. Relying on resistances is very risky, because often your "counter" will only resist one or two of the opponent's attacks. If you're planning on using Crobat to stop MixApe, you can come in on 3/4 of its attacks easily and scare it off with Brave Bird, but when it predicts that and Flamethrowers, you're Crobat's going to be hurting (albeit not OHKO'd). If you decide to make Gyarados as your sole Heracross counter, you're going to have to beware of CB Stone Edges. If Floatzel is how you attempt to stop Starmie, you'd better hope that it doesn't pack Thunderbolt. You get the idea. Switching Cresselia into that MixApe, or Gliscor into that Heracross, or Snorlax into that Starmie is a much safer plan.

 

[Dragontamer]

well, this might sound odd but, my sp. def wall is a togekiss. despite the fact that most special attkers or sweepers have thunderbolt or ice beam, togekiss is very effective. it can take 3 thunderbolts or ice beams, which i think is incredable. i use the toxic, protect, air slash, roost moveset. it hurts them a lot. so thats how i handle type coverage.

I can confirm that. :-) Now that the metagame is shifting back to stall, I might wanna try that again... but there are just so many pokemon with stone edge now that it may just not be worth it.

One problem is that while Togekiss works well, Standard Blissey beats it in HP, Sp. Def, and even physical def while having fewer weaknesses overall. NP Togekiss works very well as a wall breaker, but it _really_ wishes for 404 subs so it can tango with seismic toss users 1v1. Nonetheless, it has awesome Sp. Def and is flexible enough that your opponent has no friggen clue what to do.

* Switch out to a sweeper? Hello Body Slam / T-Wave.
* Leave in your wall and status? Hello Sub / Plot / Shadow Ball / Aura Sphere or even Sub / Plot / Pass
* Stat up? Encore and Yawn.

Even then, who, aside from Blissey, can switch into repeated Nasty Ploted attacks? Swampert fears Grass Knot, Steels and darks fear Aura Sphere. Ghosts / Psychics fear shadow ball...

 

[Mekkah]

Togekiss is still a generic wall though that is relying on his stats and a recovery move to take hits. I mean, you're implying you use him to take SE attacks like a champ - how is that using resistances?

 

[Dragontamer]

Well, back when I used togekiss a lot as my Sp. Wall, it was my generic Sp. Wall >_>

For strange resistances and that sort of thing, my hail team seems to match what people are talking about. One interesting thing was that 2 or 3 switch chains would get me where I needed. Azelf was one funny pokemon that seemed to always work out to my plan.

1. Abomasnow. Sets up hail, destroys potential focus sash.
2. Tentacruel, absorbs the flamethrower.
3. CB Weavile, absorbs psychic and then pursuits for the kill.

 

[Blln]

I don't really use alot of walls because most of the time I find them unneeded, since I very rarely use frali sweepers. My sweepers tend to be bulky and have enough resistances that they can cover for eachother, ie things like Scizor, Heatran, Gallade, etc. Offensive pokemon who also have alot of defensive potential. As long as you make sure to pack something with Wish on your team then most of the time just having overall bulky pokemon should suffice.

The only time I run into problems is when it gets to the ridiculously hard hitters, stuff like Specmence, CBTar, and CBHera most of the time. If these guys are just too much for my offensive teams to handle I might throw on a wall, because really even with resistances, chances are you aren't beating CBHeracross without a serious wall

 

[Dragontamer]

I don't really use alot of walls because most of the time I find them unneeded, since I very rarely use frali sweepers. My sweepers tend to be bulky and have enough resistances that they can cover for eachother, ie things like Scizor, Heatran, Gallade, etc. Offensive pokemon who also have alot of defensive potential. As long as you make sure to pack something with Wish on your team then most of the time just having overall bulky pokemon should suffice.

The only time I run into problems is when it gets to the ridiculously hard hitters, stuff like Specmence, CBTar, and CBHera most of the time. If these guys are just too much for my offensive teams to handle I might throw on a wall, because really even with resistances, chances are you aren't beating CBHeracross without a serious wall

On the contrary. Crobat can wall both of CBHeracross's stab hits. If you predict a Stone Edge, Lucario can take it with its 4x resist to rock, swords dance on the switch, endure the counter and reversal / salac sweep :-)

With good prediction, you can force CB Heracross out completely and give yourself an edge.

 

[tdub13]

On the contrary. Crobat can wall both of CBHeracross's stab hits. If you predict a Stone Edge, Lucario can take it with its 4x resist to rock, swords dance on the switch, endure the counter and reversal / salac sweep :-)

With good prediction, you can force CB Heracross out completely and give yourself an edge.

I completely agree, with some good/decent prediction, any CBer can be stopped pretty easily as long as your team isn't 4/6 weak to one move.

 

[Blln]

On the contrary. Crobat can wall both of CBHeracross's stab hits. If you predict a Stone Edge, Lucario can take it with its 4x resist to rock, swords dance on the switch, endure the counter and reversal / salac sweep :-)

With good prediction, you can force CB Heracross out completely and give yourself an edge.

Yeah that's true, I forgot all about Crobat. I think I just used CBHera as an example because when I make offensive teams, I never seem to have anything that can switch into him, so I have to throw on Dusknoir or something. All I meant by that is that if you're using a highly offensive team which relies on prediction and resistances to take attacks, you could very well end up with a problem with pokemon who require somewhat specific counters to beat, like my afforementioned really heavy hitters. If things work out well, you might not have a problem, but these guys often require some seriously team building skills to counter without walls.