[9:35 PM] Volk: Porygon is incredibly simple. It walls Lax and occasionally even Freezes it. Thankfully, pretty much everyone runs Lax, so Pory will always end up facing the desired target. The only downside is Ice Lax can potentially Freeze it and Amnesia Lax completely steamrolls it. That, and Porygon is kind of dead weight against everything else, besides Paralyzed Tauros (which is still a little shaky thanks to crits) and some Pokemon without status moves (which is still shaky for the same reasons). Like Porygon can technically stall Sing/Counter/Ibeam Chansey, but I can't say I have ever seen that in action. [9:36 PM] Volk: Well, maybe not incredibly simple. The gameplan is basic, but actually doing it right can be a little tricky at times.
[9:38 PM] Heroic Troller: well said
[9:40 PM] Heroic Troller: it might be worth to add that despite being useless vs amnesia, pretty bad versed vs ice lax, and still needing not bad luck vs hyper beam, when it faces slam boom reflect there is nothing lax can do to break (two crits in a row, but that's absurd even for rby)
[9:41 PM] Heroic Troller: other than that porygon is extremely weak and frail to anything else, even rhydon is almost a 50 50 (speed tie, both 2hko, freeze chance helps but well)
[9:41 PM] Heroic Troller: eating a slot means the team will be horribly weak to either psychics, zapdos or rhydon
[9:42 PM] Heroic Troller: i have decided to go for zapdos weakness hoping not to find it, had to do some ugly things like going exeggutor on tbolt, not what you would want to do usually
[9:42 PM] pacattacc: so, is there a specific team that actually... benefits from Porygon?
[9:43 PM] pacattacc: or is it more that you build around it sometimes and it can work occasionally
[9:43 PM] Volk: Thank you. Body Slam/Earthquake essentially can never break Porygon. Body Slam/Self-destruct forces a switch or Boom. Non-Rest variants are counting on a crit and are on a timer otherwise. For all intents and purposes, I would describe Porygon as viable, though on the cusp with a few other mons.
[9:43 PM] Heroic Troller: porygon allowed me to run 4 atk lax which is still an amazing power house but usually bad because lax wars are too important to pass by
[9:44 PM] Heroic Troller: since porygon was supposed to stop lax your lax is free to be whatever he wants, even amnesia
[9:44 PM] pacattacc: yeah that makes sense
[9:46 PM] pacattacc: wait so what is the optimal play against a porygon? do you fish for crits as lax, or switch?
[9:47 PM] Heroic Troller: you ice attack it, if you don't you have, you can fish crit if you have hyper beam
[9:47 PM] Volk: Depends on your set, but usually it is forcing you to switch, unless you want to try to PP Stall it, which is dangerous due to Ice Beam.
[9:47 PM] Heroic Troller: if you are walled, the thing is simple, lax shall not attack, no reason to
[9:47 PM] Heroic Troller: booming lax is a bad play because porygon guy gets what he wanted, and you are down a lax
[9:50 PM] Volk: Alakazam can kind of bully Porygon as it will never stay in (a Paralyzed Porygon cannot wall Lax) and it has a decent matchup against Chansey (the likely switch in) if it gets a Spec drop on the switch.
[9:50 PM] Heroic Troller: exeggutor too, starmie too
[9:50 PM] Heroic Troller: porygon can't take a psychic
[9:50 PM] Heroic Troller: otherwise hb lax breaks
[9:50 PM] Volk: Starmie and Exeggutor can accomplish simialr stuff with more risks (beat me to it lol)
[9:51 PM] Heroic Troller: i would not trade psychic from eggy to do twave
[9:51 PM] Heroic Troller: it does like 50
[9:52 PM] Volk: Starmie has a worse Chansey matchup and would prefer not to take a Pory Tbolt and Eggy has no ability to heal off the damage. Still your best course of action though if you have no Alakazam. I suppose Jynx might be okay too here, especially if a Freeze is on the table.
[9:52 PM] Volk: Also, if Eggy has Stun Spore, your Pory is basically dead.
[9:53 PM] Heroic Troller: Porygon Thunderbolt vs. Starmie: 115 - 136 (35.6 - 42.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
[9:53 PM] Heroic Troller: i don't think starmie minds that much
[9:53 PM] Heroic Troller: twave is an ohko move on porygon
[9:53 PM] Heroic Troller: porygon must switch out from every pokemon besides lax
[9:53 PM] Heroic Troller: and tauros in 1v1 full
[9:53 PM] Volk: No, it doesn't, but Starmie will likely need to heal after taking that hit, so it won't be able to pressure the incoming Chansey as much. Of course, you can always just predict the Recover.
[9:54 PM] Volk: Depends a bit on the Chansey set.