Starmie sweeper - Natural Ability

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SRD

Hello!

I am EV training a Starmie as a special sweeper, and today I realized that I completely forgot to research its natural abilities. I found that it has the abilities Illuminate, which attracts wild Pokemon (useless), and Natural Cure, which heals upon switching the Pokemon out of battle. Now, I was disappointed when I saw that mine had Illuminate, but I wanted to ask if Natural Cure was entirely essential. After all, as a special sweeper, Starmie is not really designed to take a single hit in the first place, so I could only assume that Natural Cure would fail to benefit Starmie for the most part. I may be wrong, but I thought I would ask since I expect that the people of this community know what they're talking about.

I'm note sure if I need to describe the Starmie in detail, since many likely know what is necessary of a special sweeper. However, it is of modest nature, and has its EV's in Speed and Special Atk.
 
I remember reading here maybe a week ago that, with Illuminate, you could trick someone into breaking Sleep Clause. They will naturally think you have Natural Cure, and thereby expect your sleep to be removed when Starmie leaves play. Then if they put your switch-in to sleep, they break Sleep Clause and forfeit the match.

On the other hand, Natural Cure does give Starmie a handy way to deal with Paralysis, in the event that you actually become Paralyzed, although I don't know how often that actually happens, as in my unfortunately limited battling experience, i've never used Starmie, and have never fought anyone who has :)
 
Natural Cure enables him to take status, something not every sweeper can do. Got statussed, just switch him out and try again later. That's why Natural Cure is the better one of the two. That Illuminate trick is nasty but not everybody will make a Starmie sleep.
 
MiekZor said:
I remember reading here maybe a week ago that, with Illuminate, you could trick someone into breaking Sleep Clause. They will naturally think you have Natural Cure, and thereby expect your sleep to be removed when Starmie leaves play. Then if they put your switch-in to sleep, they break Sleep Clause and forfeit the match.
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Yeah that was my idea (or at least I did post that a while ago), that's why it may not be so bad.
 
I think if you tried that trick in some kind of tournament, you'd be disqualified for tricking your opponent into break a clause. It
is partially their fault for assuming you have Natural Cure, but then again who the hell uses Illuminate Starmie?
 
Hey, if you think about it, you didn't trick them. They made an incorrect assumption. It'd be like putting a random move on a pokemon so that when they assume you don't have it, they get owned on the switch. Except this time they lose the whole match instead of one or two pokemon. Unethical yes, but still...
 
You know how fucked up that is right? =/

Back to the point at hand. Starmie somewhat needs to take hits if it isn't Specs, because it's a handy Infernape, Gyara counter.

If you do use specs, then use Natural Cure because the Starmie can get paralyzed/sleeped/frozen and you can get rid of it by switching. With Illuminate, if you get statused like that, you're fucked.
 
SRD said:
Hello!

After all, as a special sweeper, Starmie is not really designed to take a single hit in the first place,
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Starmie actually can take a hit, since 85 base in both Def stats isn't too bad. Obviously, it won't live against SE or strong Choice/boosted attacks, but it can decently live through stuff. You can't really run a bulky spread without giving up Spd/SpAtk, but I think it would be very possible if you were using Choice Scarf (standard 120SpAtk, 20Spd to outspeed everything trying to outspeed Choice Scarf Heracross [20 EVs puts it at 271], and then you have 368 EVs remaining for HP/Defenses. Of course, then you don't have Recover, so I guess it might not really work after all).

Anyway, I'd go with Natural Cure. Starmie is supposed to outspeed alot of things, and being paralyzed would really hurt it. If Starmie gets hit by Hypnosis, you can easily switch out (and heal Starmie) to any sleep absorber, if you have one.
 
sanjay120 said:
I think if you tried that trick in some kind of tournament, you'd be disqualified for tricking your opponent into break a clause. It
is partially their fault for assuming you have Natural Cure, but then again who the hell uses Illuminate Starmie?
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Lol, I run an Illuminate Starmie. I was too lazy to breed for a Timid Nature Cure Staryu. I made it into a spinner, but it hurt when I got paralyzed. Ultimately, it costed me the match.
 
How can you be DQed for tricking your opponent? Are you not allowed to switch out your Illuminate Starmie from a sleeper or something because that would be "tricking"? Why wouldn't you be allowed to use Illuminate for that in the first place? It's his only use and a very clever one if you ask me.
 
natural cure is definitely worth it. getting your starmie paralyzed will essentially make it worthless.

and about tricking your opponent into breaking sleep clause, there's nothing wrong with that. i double check the icons in the top right before i use a sleep attack to make sure nothing is still asleep. if you put 2 pokemon to sleep, that's your own negligence.
 
I got screwed by an Illuminate Starmie. Although it was a GameFAQs match and the kid didn't even realize I'd broken Sleep Clause ._.; I forfeited anyway when I realized what I'd done. Friggin' Illuminate Starmies...

Natural Cure is significantly better for Starmie as its Speed is one of its most important traits. If you switch Starmie in on paralysis, you've crippled it for the entire match. If it's IVs aren't that high, you might as well rebreed. EV training takes no time at all with Pokerus and Macho Brace or the Power Items.
 
You could live with it if you had an Aromatheropy Blissey but you'd be just wasting a turn, So you can deal with it but Natural cure is the way to go
 
garsh0p said:
and about tricking your opponent into breaking sleep clause, there's nothing wrong with that. i double check the icons in the top right before i use a sleep attack to make sure nothing is still asleep. if you put 2 pokemon to sleep, that's your own negligence.
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You're missing the problem.

Starmie switches in to sleeper whatever (Parasect, lol), and gets slept. The sleeper's trainer says "Hey, he's gun switch again, so I'll sleep the incoming mon, since Starmie won't be sleeping after Natural Cure." At that point, there's no way to know that you'll hit that small chance of breaking sleep clause because your opponent has illuminate.

Honestly, it just seems like specifically using Illuminate Starmie to force your opponent to accidentally break sleep clause is a very asshole-ish thing to do. The problem wouldn't be there if the game recognized sleep clause, but I think getting an extra mon slept is what you deserve for your unsportmanlike conduct of trying to trick your opponent into breaking a clause.
 
RiptideFugitive said:
You're missing the problem.

Starmie switches in to sleeper whatever (Parasect, lol), and gets slept. The sleeper's trainer says "Hey, he's gun switch again, so I'll sleep the incoming mon, since Starmie won't be sleeping after Natural Cure." At that point, there's no way to know that you'll hit that small chance of breaking sleep clause because your opponent has illuminate.

Honestly, it just seems like specifically using Illuminate Starmie to force your opponent to accidentally break sleep clause is a very asshole-ish thing to do. The problem wouldn't be there if the game recognized sleep clause, but I think getting an extra mon slept is what you deserve for your unsportmanlike conduct of trying to trick your opponent into breaking a clause.
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No it's not. You should always scout ahead to see if the opponent is Natural Cure or not. I would never double sleep something in a tournament match unless it was the only way I could pull off a win. I've screwed myself over against my cousin's Serene Grace Blissey before with this as well. Although that's because it was in Pokemon Battle Revolution and I thought we turned Sleep Clause on (which would make the second sleep fail). I would have lost if it failed anyway so it didn't matter.

It's not much different than having to scout for Electivire when you use Thunderbolt.
 
When your opponent boosts Electvire, it's legal. It may lose him the whole match, but it's legal. Sleeping two Pokemon is not.

But I do agree now: Getting two things slept is what you deserve for trying to trick your opponent into breaking the rules or forgetting your Starmie had Illuminate.
 
sanjay120 said:
When your opponent boosts Electvire, it's legal. It may lose him the whole match, but it's legal. Sleeping two Pokemon is not.

But I do agree now: Getting two things slept is what you deserve for trying to trick your opponent into breaking the rules or forgetting your Starmie had Illuminate.
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Then that's stupid and puts you at a disadvantage (as if having Illuminate wasn't already a disadvantage). Now you're forcing the opponent to STAY IN on a sleep. If they have Illuminate and switch, and you were dumb enough to double status with sleep without checking their trait beforehand, you are disqualified. Unless you're saying people who deviate from the standard Natural Cure Blissey should be punished too?

When something falls asleep. Most people switch. It's pretty much instinct as keeping something asleep can be suicide. They shouldn't be forced to keep their Pokemon in just because they have Illuminate -_-;

If you Encore the opponent's Hypnosis/Spore/Sleep Powder/etc. and they put you to sleep like that, I would say that it shouldn't matter.

If you fall asleep through Effect Spore, I say it shouldn't matter.

If you fall asleep through Metronome, I say it shouldn't matter.

But in the Natural Cure/Illuminate case, the person using the sleep move had full control over what they were doing.
 
Firestorm said:
If they have Illuminate and switch, and you were dumb enough to double status with sleep without checking their trait beforehand, you are disqualified. Unless you're saying people who deviate from the standard Natural Cure Blissey should be punished too?
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But how could you check their trait beforehand? You're not allowed to go through everyone on their team to see what their abilities are, and you can't just ask them "what trait does your starmie have?".
 
porygon3 said:
But how could you check their trait beforehand? You're not allowed to go through everyone on their team to see what their abilities are, and you can't just ask them "what trait does your starmie have?".
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The first time you status it, you don't double sleep. You check the Pokeball in the upper left (or was it right?) corner to see if the Pokeball stays dark or goes back to being the normal colour.
 
But the thing is, while Starmie is still in, you can't tell if it's going to be Natural Cure or Illuminate. Sure you can just not use Hypnosis again, but I'd rather not do something that I don't want to do, just because of the possibility that my opponent is using Illuminate.
 
Firestorm said:
If you fall asleep through Effect Spore, I say it shouldn't matter.

If you fall asleep through Metronome, I say it shouldn't matter.

But in the Natural Cure/Illuminate case, the person using the sleep move had full control over what they were doing.
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I am suddenly reminded of a discussion we had in school about abstinence and birth control. o.0

It seems okay to use illuminate starmie, though... I mean, disallowing it is like disallowing choice scarf pokes because your opponent 'doesn't expect it.' :/
 
Without delving very far into this discussion, I'd like to simply state that tricking your opponent to forfeit the match is an ass-holeish thing to do. That is not why Sleep Clause was made. Sleep Clause was made to make the game more interesting because sleep is a very powerful (and arguably too powerful) status. Not so that it can be abused to make you win tournys.
 
porygon3 said:
But the thing is, while Starmie is still in, you can't tell if it's going to be Natural Cure or Illuminate. Sure you can just not use Hypnosis again, but I'd rather not do something that I don't want to do, just because of the possibility that my opponent is using Illuminate.
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This argument really does make no sense to me. Double Status is a strategy that works in some cases and doesn't in others. If you don't know if they're using Natural Cure, in no way should you be using two status in a row. EVERYBODY SWITCHES OUT AFTER SLEEP! Not just Starmie! If you sleep twice, you're breaking the clause. You should not assume that something has Natural Cure. You had full power over your actions (unlike if you were Encored, Effect Spored, Metronomed, or what ever else).

In Pokemon Battle Revolution, Competitor, and NetBattle this won't matter because the sleep move will automatically fail if you try to do it. You'll have lost a turn. In WiFi, it should be a forfeit. I've forfeited both times I've done it (Illuminate Starmie and Serene Grace Blissey). In the first case, it's because I just felt like doing it since it wasn't an important match. In the second case, I was gambling on it being Natural Cure because it was the only chance I had at winning. It's all about risk management.
 
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