Resource SV OU Simple Questions, Simple Answers Thread

Do "can't use consecutively" moves like Gigaton Hammer and Blood Moon have to successfully land to put them on Cooldown, or does it count if they are clicked but don't work (such as hitting Protect)?
 
How do you check Gren with a BO team? Cause most of the water resists are either too passive or too frail.
I've been using AV Pex, which still performs quite well vs Wake and Gren, though some good anti-hazard support is required. I've used the Water Ogrepon and that has also done OK, but suffers similar issues vs hazards & is also Tera reliant in order to not get Shredded by Dark Pulse.
 
what would be the right place to share teams we've built and discuss them (sorry i'm kind new here lol)

i kinda want to talk about a specific pokemon ive been using and provide the team its been working on for me and i dont know if thats like a rate my team thing or a metagame discussion thing
 
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what would be the right place to share teams we've built and discuss them (sorry i'm kind new here lol)

i kinda want to talk about a specific pokemon ive been using and provide the team its been working on for me and i dont know if thats like a rate my team thing or a metagame discussion thing
For OU teams, you can check out the official OU server
https://discord.gg/Pgn3Nrb
they have your general discussion, teams, games, filled with people like us

for other types of team, look for the Official Smogon server, its on the Home page at the door
for the rest of the resources, look at this page here
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ou-forum-rules-ou-council-info-and-announcements.3710769/
 
How does the accuracy of Scale Shot work? Is the 90% chance calculated every time for each individual hit, or overall? (hitting 4 or 5 times is 15% + 15% = 30% probability, which is 27% chance accounting for the 90% accuracy, but this is significantly lower if the 90% chance is calculated for every hit)
 
How does the accuracy of Scale Shot work? Is the 90% chance calculated every time for each individual hit, or overall? (hitting 4 or 5 times is 15% + 15% = 30% probability, which is 27% chance accounting for the 90% accuracy, but this is significantly lower if the 90% chance is calculated for every hit)
90% to hit at all, then the move hits % is applied
 
Is there a resource on Smogon for how to find OU games on the console? Returning after a time and have an itch to play on the console for whatever reason. Thanks!
 
I don't know where can I ask this question:

Why does Tera Blast now have the same animation as Knock off? It is not logical !
Yeah it annoys me too.

There's a place for manual setters of terrain/weather/etc, right? I see it every now and again, sometimes it catches me off guard. Do they make an appearance in the higher ranks?
 
There's a place for manual setters of terrain/weather/etc, right? I see it every now and again, sometimes it catches me off guard. Do they make an appearance in the higher ranks?
Not naturally due to instant setting being better than turn based, but it has a niche when the weather mon cant hit glowking hard enough. you can also do memes with manual setter and a mon who gets to used all those turns for himself and not share, but this is uncommon
 
I see. When I do sew them, which is pretty rare, they are on teams that already has a setter. But that's mostly on, say elo 1200 or so. I was thinking of a manual terrain to complement grassy, but it seems like a lot of work for little payoff.
 
When can a Smogon format ban a move or ability? Is it only possible when it has multiple abusers that make it broken? I've heard people say that tiering policy can ban it if it's "inherently uncompetitive" (eg. it's luck based or prevents switching) and not broken because its abuser has good stats or other good moves.
 
When can a Smogon format ban a move or ability? Is it only possible when it has multiple abusers that make it broken? I've heard people say that tiering policy can ban it if it's "inherently uncompetitive" (eg. it's luck based or prevents switching) and not broken because its abuser has good stats or other good moves.

See this discussion (which was AFAIK never officially written down into any policy guideline, but has been de-facto adopted as policy).

Smogon prefers to ban Pokemon to other metagame elements where possible; when something is broken, it is typically sufficient to ban the broken Pokemon, in which case doing so is preferred. However, in the cases of something being uncompetitive or unhealthy, lowering the power level by banning the strongest abuser doesn't necessarily remove the problematic element. Instead, in such circumstances, Smogon prefers to ban the least impactful element. Your examples of luck and switch prevention are relevant, but another example is Baton Pass; while banning the best abusers lowers the power of Baton Pass, it doesn't remove the cheesiness and unhealthy nature of the strategy. And while Smogon could just ban every Pokemon that learns Baton Pass, banning Baton Pass as a move is clearly less impactful.

The exact specifics have come under discussion recently, e.g. with Tatsugiri in DOU being a particularly thorny case — the Dondozo + Commander combo was deemed broken, but Dondozo is not inherently broken, Commander is. Tatsugiri, as the sole owner of Commander, was banned, but it is slightly concerning from a policy perspective that the characteristics of Tatsugiri itself are totally orthogonal to the reason for the ban (if Magikarp or Luvdisc got Commander instead of Tatsugiri, it'd still be broken). Still, this decision affirms the precedent that, when possible to accomplish tiering policy with a Pokemon ban, that is preferred (so a Tatsugiri ban was preferred to a Commander ban since it "did the job").

Tera is another recent case where this has come up, with a lot of discussion revolving around whether banning x number of top abusers is justified by policy rather than just banning the mechanic, but to be honest I think most people in that conversation care less about the policy implications and more about their personal thoughts on whether Tera is healthy or not.
 
Smogon prefers to ban Pokemon to other metagame elements where possible; when something is broken, it is typically sufficient to ban the broken Pokemon, in which case doing so is preferred. However, in the cases of something being uncompetitive or unhealthy, lowering the power level by banning the strongest abuser doesn't necessarily remove the problematic element. Instead, in such circumstances, Smogon prefers to ban the least impactful element. Your examples of luck and switch prevention are relevant, but another example is Baton Pass; while banning the best abusers lowers the power of Baton Pass, it doesn't remove the cheesiness and unhealthy nature of the strategy. And while Smogon could just ban every Pokemon that learns Baton Pass, banning Baton Pass as a move is clearly less impactful.
Can you explain why they banned arena trap and Annihilape, instead of banning Dugtrio and Annihilape or arena trap and rage fist? Was arena trap Diglett more broken than rage fist Primeape?
 
Tera is another recent case where this has come up, with a lot of discussion revolving around whether banning x number of top abusers is justified by policy rather than just banning the mechanic, but to be honest I think most people in that conversation care less about the policy implications and more about their personal thoughts on whether Tera is healthy or not.

Speaking of Tera, when are we going to have action on this? Every suspect the same posts about Tera vs. the mon come up. People routinely delineate the two, and don’t buy the explanation that suspect tests are only a referendum on the suspect pokemon. Considering that a strong majority of 59% voted to axe the first go around, and 2/3 of the player base in surveys wants action, what is the hold up?
 
Can you explain why they banned arena trap and Annihilape, instead of banning Dugtrio and Annihilape or arena trap and rage fist? Was arena trap Diglett more broken than rage fist Primeape?

Arena trap has multiple users. People would actually use Diglett and Trapinch just to trap stuff, same reason with Wob and Gothitelle. As for Annihilape, Primeape's probably not that broken. I believe that there were arguments that Annihilape became too much due to tera. Shedding all its weakness and feeding it rage fists was ridiculous and it murders slower teams
 
Can you explain why they banned arena trap and Annihilape, instead of banning Dugtrio and Annihilape or arena trap and rage fist? Was arena trap Diglett more broken than rage fist Primeape?
Arena Trap was utilized by the others and despite Diglett and Trapinch being NFE Pokemon they still could pull off the same trap and fish shenanigans that were considered to make AT Dugtrio unhealthy. Since the ability was proving the factor across the majority of users, the ability was deemed banworthy over the move.

In the case of Annihilape, Rage Fist alone is not considered broken enough to make any Pokemon overbearing: Annihilape manages it thanks to its very significant bulk, access to boosting moves, sustainability with Drain Punch, and the ability to magnify these set-up traits using defensive Tera, something that no other user (by which I mean just Primeape right now but still the principle) can replicate. The mon's collection of traits is what creates the unhealthy presence, so the mon is considered both the least intrusive and most intuitive (both for policy and simply remembering ruleset) approach to a ban.
 
How do know if the team I built is bad or if I just play badly with it?

I usually take teams from RMT and I can go to 1500 with them. With my own teams, I get stuck around 1200. However, I think my advantage with RMT teams is that they are well documented in how to play against key threats, something I am usually unaware about when I use my own teams. So I don't fully know if its me just being a bad builder or lacking game knowledge
 
How do know if the team I built is bad or if I just play badly with it?

I usually take teams from RMT and I can go to 1500 with them. With my own teams, I get stuck around 1200. However, I think my advantage with RMT teams is that they are well documented in how to play against key threats, something I am usually unaware about when I use my own teams. So I don't fully know if its me just being a bad builder or lacking game knowledge

When experiencing a new gen o meta, most people try to stick to samples, in your case, I think its a teambuilding thing more than a play thing

A quick tip is to use Marryland, it helps you assest type weakness on a team, which can be usefull
 
Yeah this forum has taught me that there is no shame in using sample teams, at all. The one person I saw critical of the practice was shut down hard.

We don't (usually) abide team buidling-shaming. Not like that.
 
How effective would this specs shaymin be in the current meta given alot of bulky mons are not so prepared for the rare special grass attacker?

Shaymin @ choice specs
1696856016118.png

252 SpA / 4 Def / 252 speed
Timid
Terra Fire
-Seed Flare
-Dazzling Gleam
-Terra Blast
-Earth Power
 
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