Format Discussion Scarlet/Violet Random Battle Sets

[Delta 2777]

thanks for the suggestion, but zoro-h already hits all of these coverage profiles with its current set. hyper voice and focus blast hit harder than tera blast would

The advantages over the current set is the flexibility to change your non-Ghost STAB move from Normal to Fighting, as well as having a more accurate Fighting-type move than Focus Blast, while also resisting Dark defensively. And you can also run an additional coverage move. IMO it may be a superior set. But I understand if you'd rather keep the status quo!

 

[Eroil]

I feel like yawn + flip turn could be good option to have on non av Swampert sets (you yawn them and if they stay in they get slept if they switch out you get great momentum with flip turn).
Only issue I can see with it is if it's not possible to force the combination of flip + yawn, but iirc this was a thing in gen 8 randbats

 

[Iceman8911]

I feel like yawn + flip turn could be good option to have on non av Swampert sets (you yawn them and if they stay in they get slept if they switch out you get great momentum with flip turn).
Only issue I can see with it is if it's not possible to force the combination of flip + yawn, but iirc this was a thing in gen 8 randbats

Without a hard code or a new fixed 4-move set on a different role, flip turn and yawn can't be forced to generate together. The former being very undesirable while the latter is more feasible, especially since swampert only has one role atm (Bulky Support).

I guess adding a bulky attacker set with Earthquake, Flip turn, Yawn, (Pick one out of Knock off, Stealth Rock, Roar and Ice beam) could work. But then note that the other 3 moves will generate less frequently (not too sure of the exact percentage).

Also gen 8 uses an entirely different generation system, iirc.

 

[Eroil]

Without a hard code or a new fixed 4-move set on a different role, flip turn and yawn can't be forced to generate together. The former being very undesirable while the latter is more feasible, especially since swampert only has one role atm (Bulky Support).

I guess adding a bulky attacker set with Earthquake, Flip turn, Yawn, (Pick one out of Knock off, Stealth Rock, Roar and Ice beam) could work. But then note that the other 3 moves will generate less frequently (not too sure of the exact percentage).

Also gen 8 uses an entirely different generation system, iirc.

I think that could work. Swampert's support movepool is pretty nice, but it's something a lot of other mons can do as well, and roar while useful is fairly situational without hazards up. Yawn + flip turn could give it some more uniqueness imo. I think it's worth a try, at least.

 

[thatcameguy]

shell smash smeargle is really bad, even at +2 you're still incredibly weak and almost always need tera to kill something (sometimes tera isn't even enough) and despite being high level and having spore i still find it incredibly hard to even get a shell smash off as it still dies to pretty much everything. i get you're trying to branch out sets for mons but i feel like this set actively hurts the mon, it's just a worse maushold

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

shell smash smeargle is really bad, even at +2 you're still incredibly weak and almost always need tera to kill something (sometimes tera isn't even enough) and despite being high level and having spore i still find it incredibly hard to even get a shell smash off as it still dies to pretty much everything. i get you're trying to branch out sets for mons but i feel like this set actively hurts the mon, it's just a worse maushold

to quote our internal statistics analysis (under the "good changes" section):

-Funny Smeargle (+0.87% since midmonth). Very significant for eleven days. We'll keep watching for another half month.

It is not going anywhere, and is in fact good.

 

[IcyPenguin2]

shell smash smeargle is really bad, even at +2 you're still incredibly weak and almost always need tera to kill something (sometimes tera isn't even enough) and despite being high level and having spore i still find it incredibly hard to even get a shell smash off as it still dies to pretty much everything. i get you're trying to branch out sets for mons but i feel like this set actively hurts the mon, it's just a worse maushold

If you want some insight as to how we look at damage calcs, we normally test everything on a normal type arcanine for damage. Generally we consider something strong if it can do 50% or greater to arcanine; for example:

Lvl 86 84 Atk Choice Band Mabosstiff Crunch vs. Lvl 84 84 HP / 84 Def Tera Normal Arcanine: 154-183 (53.4 - 63.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

With that said, here's the calc's of smeargle vs every other shell smasher in the format, as well as some ridiculously strong attacks

+2 Lvl 95 84 Atk Technician Smeargle Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. Lvl 84 84 HP / 84 Def Arcanine: 330-390 (114.5 - 135.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 Lvl 79 84 Atk Cloyster Icicle Spear (5 hits) vs. Lvl 84 84 HP / 84 Def Tera Normal Arcanine: 230-275 (79.8 - 95.4%) -- approx. 2HKO

Lvl 84 84 Atk Choice Band Slaking Double-Edge vs. Lvl 84 84 HP / 84 Def Tera Normal Arcanine: 280-330 (97.2 - 114.5%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

+2 Lvl 80 84 SpA Torrent Blastoise Hydro Pump vs. Lvl 84 84 HP / 84 SpD Tera Normal Arcanine: 286-337 (99.3 - 117%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

+2 Lvl 81 84 Atk Drednaw Stone Edge vs. Lvl 84 84 HP / 84 Def Tera Normal Arcanine: 222-262 (77 - 90.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 Lvl 79 84 SpA Polteageist Shadow Ball vs. Lvl 84 84 HP / 84 SpD Arcanine: 190-225 (65.9 - 78.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 Lvl 78 84 Atk Torterra Headlong Rush vs. Lvl 84 84 HP / 84 Def Tera Normal Arcanine: 238-282 (82.6 - 97.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 Lvl 95 84 SpA Magcargo Fire Blast vs. Lvl 84 84 HP / 84 SpD Tera Normal Arcanine: 277-327 (96.1 - 113.5%) -- 75% chance to OHKO

As you can see, smeargle does more raw damage than every other shell smasher, even outdamaging choice band slaking double edge

You also mentioned maushold, and after one turn of setup we can see that they do the exact same damage, and I'd argue that smeargle is more of a sidegrade since you don't get the hazard clearing effect, but in exchange you get stronger dark coverage + spore

+1 Lvl 76 84 Atk Technician Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. Lvl 84 84 HP / 84 Def Tera Normal Arcanine: 330-390 (114.5 - 135.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

I get that setting up a shell smash can be hard in a lot of scenarios, but looking at the raw damage we decided it would be worth testing. Cake already touched on the stats part, and if the winrate ends up dropping we will look into reverting the set, but I hope this provided some insight as to how we build sets what damage benchmarks we look for. If you have any other questions with how sets work, either check out the rands explainer thread, or ask here, and I'd love to help answer them! Sorry this ended up being quite a read, there were way more shell smashers this gen than I thought lol

 

[LucaHNO]

Boom, booom, booom,
Assault vest rillaboom
let's grassy glide together
from now until forever!

A new rillaboom set where the role is AV pivot, so it has an AV, and it can pivot (U-Turn guaranteed)
To keep its priority and revenge killing utility, grassy glide would be also a guaranteed move on the set!
This thing can survive some serious hits, but it may have some difficulty firing back, so tera grass should be the only tera type (Like on the cb/lorb set), and it would have a third 100% move in wood hammer.
The best option for the fourth move would be knock off to get consistent progress if the player believes it would get more value than the momentum, but hhp and lowkick could fight for the fourth moveslot as some always great coverage in a mon that would get to be some nice amounts of turns on the field.


Some of the serious hits in question:

2 calm minds + 2 turns of speed boost espathra: +2 Lvl 80 84 SpA Espathra Stored Power (140 BP) vs. Lvl 79 84 HP / 84 SpD Assault Vest Rillaboom: 217-256 (75.3 - 88.8%)
It is a 12.5% change to OHKO if the bird gets three turns of speed boost and two calm minds.

Lvl 79 84 SpA Hydreigon Fire Blast vs. Lvl 79 84 HP / 84 SpD Assault Vest Rillaboom: 130-154 (45.1 - 53.4%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

Lvl 80 84 SpA Choice Specs Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. Lvl 79 84 HP / 84 SpD Assault Vest Rillaboom: 212-252 (73.6 - 87.5%)


And against those completely carefully (randomly) chosen examples, the boom can hit back, hard.

Lvl 79 84 Atk Tera Grass Rillaboom Wood Hammer vs. Lvl 80 84 HP / 84 Def Espathra in Grassy Terrain: 302-356 (106.7 - 125.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO (The boom dies from the recoil if it took the aforementioned hit, o7)

U-Turn chips hydreigon for about the same damage the drake did (Lvl 79 84 Atk Tera Grass Rillaboom U-turn vs. Lvl 79 84 HP / 84 Def Hydreigon: 102-122 (37 - 44.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO)

Greninja gets OHKO'd by tera grass glide if its water (Lvl 79 84 Atk Tera Grass Rillaboom Grassy Glide vs. Lvl 80 84 HP / 84 Def Greninja in Grassy Terrain: 260-308 (105.6 - 125.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO), but if it has protean'd for example to ice, it dies to tera grass (Lvl 79 84 Atk Tera Grass Rillaboom Wood Hammer vs. Lvl 80 84 HP / 84 Def Greninja in Grassy Terrain: 280-330 (113.8 - 134.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO)

These hits are strong, but they just denotes the value this set can have against special attackers if rillaboom is left healthy, but in most games it will get chipped down and tera won't be used on it, so its ability to recieve hits and either fire back with about the same amount of power, pivot, or revenge kill is something very valuable.
This effect can be seen against bulkier mons that hit the boom with stab super effective attacks like eternatus (Lvl 69 84 SpA Eternatus Sludge Bomb vs. Lvl 79 84 HP / 84 SpD Assault Vest Rillaboom: 138-164 (47.9 - 56.9%) -- 37.5% chance to 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery), where even if it loses the machup because of speed tiers, it can get some very nice damage a team might elseway not be able to get while keeping momentum as a sac. (Lvl 79 84 Atk Rillaboom High Horsepower vs. Lvl 69 84 HP / 84 Def Eternatus: 154-182 (50 - 59%) -- 21.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery).

(P.D. Is there any way I can see past sets or past changes? I wanted to check if this wasn't added before so I searched on this forum post and found nothing, but I want to make sure just to not waste everyone's time.)

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

Boom, booom, booom,
Assault vest rillaboom
let's grassy glide together
from now until forever!

A new rillaboom set where the role is AV pivot, so it has an AV, and it can pivot (U-Turn guaranteed)
To keep its priority and revenge killing utility, grassy glide would be also a guaranteed move on the set!
This thing can survive some serious hits, but it may have some difficulty firing back, so tera grass should be the only tera type (Like on the cb/lorb set), and it would have a third 100% move in wood hammer.
The best option for the fourth move would be knock off to get consistent progress if the player believes it would get more value than the momentum, but hhp and lowkick could fight for the fourth moveslot as some always great coverage in a mon that would get to be some nice amounts of turns on the field.


Some of the serious hits in question:

2 calm minds + 2 turns of speed boost espathra: +2 Lvl 80 84 SpA Espathra Stored Power (140 BP) vs. Lvl 79 84 HP / 84 SpD Assault Vest Rillaboom: 217-256 (75.3 - 88.8%)
It is a 12.5% change to OHKO if the bird gets three turns of speed boost and two calm minds.

Lvl 79 84 SpA Hydreigon Fire Blast vs. Lvl 79 84 HP / 84 SpD Assault Vest Rillaboom: 130-154 (45.1 - 53.4%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

Lvl 80 84 SpA Choice Specs Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. Lvl 79 84 HP / 84 SpD Assault Vest Rillaboom: 212-252 (73.6 - 87.5%)


And against those completely carefully (randomly) chosen examples, the boom can hit back, hard.

Lvl 79 84 Atk Tera Grass Rillaboom Wood Hammer vs. Lvl 80 84 HP / 84 Def Espathra in Grassy Terrain: 302-356 (106.7 - 125.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO (The boom dies from the recoil if it took the aforementioned hit, o7)

U-Turn chips hydreigon for about the same damage the drake did (Lvl 79 84 Atk Tera Grass Rillaboom U-turn vs. Lvl 79 84 HP / 84 Def Hydreigon: 102-122 (37 - 44.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO)

Greninja gets OHKO'd by tera grass glide if its water (Lvl 79 84 Atk Tera Grass Rillaboom Grassy Glide vs. Lvl 80 84 HP / 84 Def Greninja in Grassy Terrain: 260-308 (105.6 - 125.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO), but if it has protean'd for example to ice, it dies to tera grass (Lvl 79 84 Atk Tera Grass Rillaboom Wood Hammer vs. Lvl 80 84 HP / 84 Def Greninja in Grassy Terrain: 280-330 (113.8 - 134.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO)

These hits are strong, but they just denotes the value this set can have against special attackers if rillaboom is left healthy, but in most games it will get chipped down and tera won't be used on it, so its ability to recieve hits and either fire back with about the same amount of power, pivot, or revenge kill is something very valuable.
This effect can be seen against bulkier mons that hit the boom with stab super effective attacks like eternatus (Lvl 69 84 SpA Eternatus Sludge Bomb vs. Lvl 79 84 HP / 84 SpD Assault Vest Rillaboom: 138-164 (47.9 - 56.9%) -- 37.5% chance to 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery), where even if it loses the machup because of speed tiers, it can get some very nice damage a team might elseway not be able to get while keeping momentum as a sac. (Lvl 79 84 Atk Rillaboom High Horsepower vs. Lvl 69 84 HP / 84 Def Eternatus: 154-182 (50 - 59%) -- 21.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery).

(P.D. Is there any way I can see past sets or past changes? I wanted to check if this wasn't added before so I searched on this forum post and found nothing, but I want to make sure just to not waste everyone's time.)

Ok we'll add av rillaboom next update, thank you for the suggestion! also if you look in our forum there's a changelog thread

 

[Sqookblooks]

IMO Pecharunt should have the ability to roll Poltergeist if it is also rolling Parting Shot. Nearly every Ghost and Psychic Type (except ironically Pecharunt itself) gets hit harder by Poltergeist and the damage is actually pretty damn significant, with mons like Mew, Uxie, Bronzong, Cresselia, Mesprit, and Scream Tail all going from solid 3HKOs with Shadow Ball to solid or near solid 2HKOs after rocks with Poltergeist.

On Nasty Plot sets, Pecharunt can probably keep Shadow Ball though. Although I'm not a coding expert or know anything about how the Randbats code works, Pecharunt and Munkidori are the only two legal mons capable of rolling Parting Shot and Poltergeist together and Munkidori doesn't generate Parting Shot, so you could probably code Poltergeist to generate with Parting Shot for something like this.

 

[IcyPenguin2]

IMO Pecharunt should have the ability to roll Poltergeist if it is also rolling Parting Shot. Nearly every Ghost and Psychic Type (except ironically Pecharunt itself) gets hit harder by Poltergeist and the damage is actually pretty damn significant, with mons like Mew, Uxie, Bronzong, Cresselia, Mesprit, and Scream Tail all going from solid 3HKOs with Shadow Ball to solid or near solid 2HKOs after rocks with Poltergeist.

On Nasty Plot sets, Pecharunt can probably keep Shadow Ball though. Although I'm not a coding expert or know anything about how the Randbats code works, Pecharunt and Munkidori are the only two legal mons capable of rolling Parting Shot and Poltergeist together and Munkidori doesn't generate Parting Shot, so you could probably code Poltergeist to generate with Parting Shot for something like this.

Hi, we discussed your suggestion and currently it will not be accepted, primarily due to pp concerns. Malignant chain and Poltergeist only have 8 pp each leading to a combined 16 pp, leading to plenty of scenarios where Pecharunt is not able to make progress and gets pp stalled, effectively making it a sitting duck. While we agree the extra damage would be very nice, the opportunity cost is too high, and as shadow ball isn't too much weaker, and significantly more spammable, we have elected to keep it. Sorry that your suggestion didn't end up getting accepted, and I hope you'll post more ideas in the future!

 

[kingofcharge]

I think bisharp has a strong case for being added to random battles, possibly with the moveset swords dance, sucker punch, throat chop, and iron head, as it's both sufficiently distinct from its evo and sufficiently strong to be usable.
Its tiering in RU suggests that it is more than capable of holding up to fully-evolved pokemon. It has pretty high attack which it can boost farther with swords dance to hit hard.
Its lack of supreme overlord means that unlike kingambit, it doesn't have as much incentive to keep it until after most or all of your other mons have been knocked out, which will cause it to play differently despite running a lot of the same moves. Not having supreme overlord take up its ability slot also frees up the ability for something else, like defiant, to be more distinct from kingambit.

 

[Unstoppable1]

Add Dark Tera to Lugia. It doesnt care about Fighting and Bug mons with Aeroblast, has CM vs Fairy mons which are almost all special attackers, but
the main reason why I suggest doing this - CM Wars vs Psyshock mons, Lugia cant do anything with them and that makes her extremely weak in fucking randbats. Lugia needs Psychic immunity and im done

 

[bobomania]

I think bisharp has a strong case for being added to random battles, possibly with the moveset swords dance, sucker punch, throat chop, and iron head, as it's both sufficiently distinct from its evo and sufficiently strong to be usable.
Its tiering in RU suggests that it is more than capable of holding up to fully-evolved pokemon. It has pretty high attack which it can boost farther with swords dance to hit hard.
Its lack of supreme overlord means that unlike kingambit, it doesn't have as much incentive to keep it until after most or all of your other mons have been knocked out, which will cause it to play differently despite running a lot of the same moves. Not having supreme overlord take up its ability slot also frees up the ability for something else, like defiant, to be more distinct from kingambit.

this is a topic that has been discussed since the start of the generation, but there isnt much bisharp can do to really make itself unique from kingambit. its not bulkier, its speed isnt significantly greater in the first place, and it would be running an identical set. even defiant isnt a clearly unique quality as kingambit could very well run defiant as well

 

[RmxPlaysPc]

this is a topic that has been discussed since the start of the generation, but there isnt much bisharp can do to really make itself unique from kingambit. its not bulkier, its speed isnt significantly greater in the first place, and it would be running an identical set. even defiant isnt a clearly unique quality as kingambit could very well run defiant as well

Yeah we really don't need bisharp, though it would be funny to have a random bulky passive set on ladder