Resource Simple Questions, Simple Answers Thread

[ausma]

Not so much this gen given how you want reliable recovery with roost or some type of coverage to help muscle through past it checks, though you could use it if you wanna beat Weavile, but giving up Roost or coverage hurts.

To add onto this 658Greninja I also feel as though there's really no point in using Extreme Speed over its over options not only because of the opportunity cost but because it provides so little considering Dragonite's role as a setup sweeper in which it boosts its speed anyway and really wants coverage to handle Steel-types and things like Toxapex and Landorus-T. The most it's good for is providing an option for offensive variants against Weavile which it isn't even close to OHKOing at +1 anyway, and at +2 it's a roll marginally in the Weavile user's favor, so getting value out of Extreme Speed against Weavile is contingent on chipping it prior. You ought to just use Roost or an actual coverage option like Earthquake or Ice Punch instead to give it stronger setup opportunities.

 

[curiosity]

It’s completely fine to use it on cb sets tho

 

[Max. Optimizer]

Greetings everyone,

I'm not much of a competitive battler, but I had a question regarding a specific set for Mandibuzz.
I saw that the users AM and BoomFantastic used Impish Mandibuzz with 0 Atk IVs.
For reference, AM's pokepaste can be found here and BoomFantastic's pokepaste can be found here.
Why is this combination chosen? I usually see 0 Atk on Bold sets, whereas Impish goes with 31 Atk, in conjunction with U-turn, Knock Off, Brave Bird etc.
Does it ultimately not really matter or is there a specific reason that I can't seem to find.
BoomFantastic explained in their RMT that Mandibuzz with Toxic is supposed to deal with Volcarona.
Wouldn't a Careful nature be better in that case?

This post is obviously not meant to imply that there's something wrong with these sets.
I'm merely curious on how to use this Pokémon from the perspective of a more casual player.

Thank you very much for any helpful feedback!

 

[Finchinator]

Greetings everyone,

I'm not much of a competitive battler, but I had a question regarding a specific set for Mandibuzz.
I saw that the users AM and BoomFantastic used Impish Mandibuzz with 0 Atk IVs.
For reference, AM's pokepaste can be found here and BoomFantastic's pokepaste can be found here.
Why is this combination chosen? I usually see 0 Atk on Bold sets, whereas Impish goes with 31 Atk, in conjunction with U-turn, Knock Off, Brave Bird etc.
Does it ultimately not really matter or is there a specific reason that I can't seem to find.
BoomFantastic explained in their RMT that Mandibuzz with Toxic is supposed to deal with Volcarona.
Wouldn't a Careful nature be better in that case?

This post is obviously not meant to imply that there's something wrong with these sets.
I'm merely curious on how to use this Pokémon from the perspective of a more casual player.

Thank you very much for any helpful feedback!

They should both be Bold if they want a +Def nature — it should be -Atk regardless of which defense they want to raise. If you do not run UTurn, Knock, or Brave Bird, the attack stat should always be minimized for the sake of confusion.

Toxic Mandibuzz can help check Volcarona, but even with +SDef, you will lose once it gets 2-3 QDs before the Toxic timer runs out on it, so the nature does not matter too much as you will always live +1 Volcarona and get a Toxic off as is. Mandibuzz will never be a true counter to Volcarona and even Toxic variants will lose to Sub or Safeguard Volcarona. So that Mandibuzz can go either way and depends how the rest of the team does against the various Volcarona match-ups and other Pokemon Mandibuzz is needed for.

 

[AM]

It was Impish before because it was U-Turn originally over Toxic and I forgot to change whoops.

Team pretty old anyways don't use it.

 

[BoomFantastic]

Greetings everyone,

I'm not much of a competitive battler, but I had a question regarding a specific set for Mandibuzz.
I saw that the users AM and BoomFantastic used Impish Mandibuzz with 0 Atk IVs.
For reference, AM's pokepaste can be found here and BoomFantastic's pokepaste can be found here.
Why is this combination chosen? I usually see 0 Atk on Bold sets, whereas Impish goes with 31 Atk, in conjunction with U-turn, Knock Off, Brave Bird etc.
Does it ultimately not really matter or is there a specific reason that I can't seem to find.
BoomFantastic explained in their RMT that Mandibuzz with Toxic is supposed to deal with Volcarona.
Wouldn't a Careful nature be better in that case?

This post is obviously not meant to imply that there's something wrong with these sets.
I'm merely curious on how to use this Pokémon from the perspective of a more casual player.

Thank you very much for any helpful feedback!

A mistake on my part, it was initially U-turn but when I swapped over to Toxic, the teambuilder set the Attack IV to zero but I neglected to switch the nature from Impish to Bold.

Regarding Volcarona, Mandibuzz can't sit on it for very long since it falls after enough Quiver Dances, it was just meant to take one hit and put Volcarona on a timer to make it somewhat easier to handle. It's definitely not a counter, but I didn't want to change the team structure and risk opening up other holes, so Toxic Mandi was just a last-ditch effort so I wasn't guaranteed to lose to the moth at Preview. Things like SpDef Landorus weren't yet commonplace back when I built that team.

In any case, Mandibuzz has heavily fallen out of favor in the current meta, so I wouldn't recommend that you use it unless it fulfills a specific role that your team is in need of.

 

[MrHands]

I know recently hail offense with Arctozolt has been getting popular but with the exception of just stalking high ladder battles on Showdown I can't really find any examples of Hail team pastes. Does anyone have a pokepaste of good Arctozolt hail offense?

 

[Katy]

I know recently hail offense with Arctozolt has been getting popular but with the exception of just stalking high ladder battles on Showdown I can't really find any examples of Hail team pastes. Does anyone have a pokepaste of good Arctozolt hail offense?

Dragon Claw used 1 very good team with Arcozolt and Alola Ninetales in the recent WCoP tiebreakers between US South and Germany in the finals: https://pokepast.es/00428982dad8e6c3 here is the pokepaste. It got also features as OU Team of the week, with a description below, what each Pokemon does. Sub Arctozolt is really good recently, as it allows Arctozolt to get around checks more efficently and Kyurem can also be a nice partner. Alola Ninetales can help here with veil and Hail and with Icy Rock it can extend those turns for Arctozolt.

Hope that helped :)

 

[Red Raven]

Does Heatran run a new spread these days or does it still use the 252 hp / 136 spd + / 120 spe one?

 

[Finchinator]

Does Heatran run a new spread these days or does it still use the 252 hp / 136 spd + / 120 spe one?

Depends a lot on the team. That spread (or outrunning max adamant Scizor) is valid and fairly common, but you can go slower on some teams due to the lack of max speed Magnezone and Aegislash right now. You can also go with that or even faster if you do not feel a need to maximize special bulk or if you wish to go more offensive.

 

[goomywastaken]

Why does it say "Unofficial Ladder" above NatDexUU?

 

[Finchinator]

Why does it say "Unofficial Ladder" above NatDexUU?

Because it is not an official tier and may not always be entitled to having a regular ladder

 

[goomywastaken]

Why is it not official?

 

[Finchinator]

Why is it not official?

National Dex is not even a truly official tier, so ND UU is very much not. The main tiers are the usage based ones that are based off of what is legal in the games themselves -- OU, UU, RU, NU, PU, etc. -- whereas National Dex is a popular mode this generation due to it allowing things that you cannot find in the game and maximizing possibilities. It is not a truly playable metagame in the games themselves, thus making it unofficial.

 

[Da stall masta 999]

Why is semi stall often considered to be better than full stall? It applies offensive pressure which is an obvious downside to fuller stalls, but it always seems like semi stalls have more holes than full stalls. I usually have more success with full stalls too and run into less threats.

 

[airfare]

Why is semi stall often considered to be better than full stall? It applies offensive pressure which is an obvious downside to fuller stalls, but it always seems like semi stalls have more holes than full stalls. I usually have more success with full stalls too and run into less threats.

gen8 “full stall” is markedly similar to semistall in past gens. most of stall’s traditional passive wincons in something like toxic or hazards spam have become a lot less effective as boots dominate the meta and regen cores can often block any progress from being made. 99% of ss stall usually relies on some sort of win condition as its backbone, whether it’s calm mind clefable, reuniclus, kyurem, or something else to exhibit any form of pressure on opposing fat teams.

tldr is that stall requires offensive pressure to not fall apart vs other defensive teams in ss, and the line between what to call balance/semistall/stall has blurred a lot because of it

 

[JF1845]

Is sleep powder on Venusaur better than growth( without sun)?

 

[Finchinator]

Is sleep powder on Venusaur better than growth( without sun)?

Venusaur is not really viable without sun, but sleep powder is an ok option if you feel you do not need the coverage or boosting. Usually it is too hard to drop one or the other though, but yea I would only use it on sun teams.

 

[Seucra Lockhart]

Why are people raving about arctozolt all of a sudden? It's apparently all over OLT or something

 

[Tysonslayer]

Why are people raving about arctozolt all of a sudden? It's apparently all over OLT or something

It’s gaining a lot of popularity with its nearly unresisted duel stab that is able to break past majority of teams in hail teams with the power Bolt Beak and ice moves to break past ground-types that act as immunity. Itself is a deadly breaker that has very limited switch-ins that many teams lose immediately from team preview.

 

[Abhi]

Why are people raving about arctozolt all of a sudden? It's apparently all over OLT or something

Its become a pretty consistent pokemon going nearly undefeated in official tour battles, and its mostly because of it being very hard to switch into and properly check since it usually has a way to break through most of them

 

[toaster04]

Why are people raving about arctozolt all of a sudden? It's apparently all over OLT or something

adding to the above comments, gains loads of tempo w/ doubled speed in hail and an unresisted stab combo that punishes a lot if not every common metagame archetype. it gained popularity due to people spamming hail in olt which picked up a high % rate of raw winrates

you lose on preview or just predict / play around zolt with a premeditated gameplan, worst case scenario ff. think one slightly skimmed over fact is the added chip damage to would-be checks, you kinda layer 18% of chip damage counting midgame chip dmg off of breakers which would be around 8-12% of damage, along with neutral rocks damage.

 

[pulsar512b]

Why are people raving about arctozolt all of a sudden? It's apparently all over OLT or something

look at your teambuilder and i guarantee you at least half (probably much more) completely lose to arctozolt hail or have to try to awkwardly pivot around

 

[Ehmcee]

How does the utility umbrella item work?

 

[AM]

How does the utility umbrella item work?

it negates the effects of weathers boosting effects for attacks. So if rain is up for example and your opponent clicks scald, the damage modifier that rain applies to water moves doesn't take effect if you're mon is holding the item.