Topic of the Week #12 - Shielding Moves

[Nollan]

This might work, but honestly I always go for the initial Fake Out on DNite to break Multiscale, and follow up with an Ice move, even before the addition of Weakness Policy. Honestly, Scarf Rotom-W + Hitmontop makes for a perfect anti-DNite pair, with Fake Out followed by a super fast HP Ice usually being enough to kill the vast majority of DNite sets.

I honestly don't understand where you intended to go with this, but any smart player would know to Protect on the Fake Out turn, or simply just switch out. And as it were:

252+ SpA Rotom-W Hidden Power Ice vs. 200 HP / 0 SpD Dragonite: 248-296 (66.4 - 79.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Even with Multiscale broken, HP Ice doesn't do enough for a KO (at least to the set I run, that is) unless you used Fake Out with Kangashkan-Mega. The fact that the set won't work if a player doesn't make the right predictions and calls is hardly a reason to dismiss it, as that would apply to almost anything.

Anyways, for the sake of actually saying something about Sky Drop, I would like to introduce an idea that no one has mentioned (assuming I didn't miss it, in which case my apologies to whoever mentioned it prior to this): Set-Up. I think one of the more interesting aspects of Sky Drop is that it temporarily disables one of the attackers on the opposite side of the field, which can make for a good set-up opportunity. The fact you can choose which attacker to disable just makes it better, as you can pick whichever attacker you think would pose a bigger threat to your set-up attempt. So, for example:

Aerodactyl & Volcarona
VS
Aegislash & Tyranitar

In this situation, chances are (which means its not certain, but likely) that the opposition will King's Shield with Aegislash while using Rock Slide from Tyranitar to get (most likely) a double KO. So, you can simply use Sky Drop on Tyranitar with Aerodactyl while Volcarona Quiver Dances, giving you a nice advantage. Then Volcarona uses Protect while Aerodactyl drops TTar and you can do the same process all over again (if Aerodactyl gets KOd you can bring another Sky Dropper onto the field if you have one, or simply bring in a Fighting-type like Breloom to counter TTar).

So, in theory, Sky Drop can make set-up much more viable in Doubles. It also allows you to potentially "check" any Pokemon (assuming it cannot do much damage to you) that threatens your partner, making Sky Droppers very useful for almost any teammate.

 

[Stratos]

Sky Drop cannot lift a Pokemon heavier than the user, sorry to kill your buzz nollan :(

That said, perhaps the best use of Sky Drop is on faster teams that don't want to deal with Trick Room support, since MegaAero can lift every common user of Trick Room except slowking (loses by .5kg cry) and has Tough Claws to boost the power of Sky Drop to a respectable 80. Aside from just dealing with Trick Room users, though, Sky Drop does have many uses such as the ones listed above, since it serves as a pseudo-fake out and gives Aero's partner a free turn (for example, Sky Dropping an Excadrill so your Heatran can set up a substitute). Overall, I think Mega Aerodactyl is a much more legitimate mon than people give it credit for. I theorymonned the following set earlier today while rating some team:

Mega Aerodactyl @ Aerolyte
Adamant
Unnerve
148 Spe / 252 Atk / 108 HP
-Rock Slide
-Wide Guard
-Sky Drop
-Protect / Fire Fang

which I think can serve as good glue for a lot of HO teams with its team support moves of Sky Drop and Wide guard, as well as dealing solid damage and flinching shit with Rock Slide

 

[youngjake93]

I was using Tornadus-T with Sky Drop, Taunt, U-Turn, Protect
It doesn't do a whole lot to the opponent(kind of like Cresselia or the set Pwne just posted), but it is extremely reliable at what it does do. Decent bulk+U Turn Regen serves to move around what the opponent does. Fast Taunt is somewhat helpful and fast Sky Drop is essentially Fake Out+Protect.

It does a whole lot of the same as Mega-Dactyl but it doesn't use a mega slot, can hold an item, different typing+movepool and has Regen.

 

[Darkmalice]

Sky Drop cannot lift a Pokemon heavier than the user, sorry to kill your buzz nollan :(

That said, perhaps the best use of Sky Drop is on faster teams that don't want to deal with Trick Room support, since MegaAero can lift every common user of Trick Room except slowking (loses by .5kg cry) and has Tough Claws to boost the power of Sky Drop to a respectable 80.

It's not that good at stopping TR - the TR user just uses it when it lands, and every TR user can survive Sky Drop (and the most common TR user postbank, Cress, takes no damage). It is, however, good at helping teammates set up in the way that you and Nollan described.

The best thing about it is that it can function as both support and as a useful STAB option. Aerodactyl and Dragonite only have Aerial Ace that competes for a physical STAB option, and bulky Thundurus can run it instead of Hidden Power to simultaneously provide coverage and support (even Timid 252 SpA Thundurus deals more damage on average with Sky Drop than HP Ice).

 

[Stratos]

It's not that good at stopping TR - the TR user just uses it when it lands, and every TR user can survive Sky Drop (and the most common TR user postbank, Cress, takes no damage). It is, however, good at helping teammates set up in the way that you and Nollan described.

Maybe I should have elaborated on how it's good at stopping TR. Imagine the following scenario:

Rhyperior + Aromatisse

Heatran + Aerodactyl

Obviously Heatran is not going to be doing shit fuck all to stop Aromatisse's setup, and Rhyperior is gonna crap dicks all over your team if TR gets set. Fortunately, you have Sky Drop. Sky Drop the Aromatisse while Rhyperior hopefully either switches in fear of wide guard or protects, and go to Metagross. When Aerodactyl lands with the Sky Drop, Meteor Mash Aromatisse and ta-da—you successfully ruined Trick Room.

 

[Darkmalice]

Maybe I should have elaborated on how it's good at stopping TR. Imagine the following scenario:

Rhyperior + Aromatisse

Heatran + Aerodactyl

Obviously Heatran is not going to be doing shit fuck all to stop Aromatisse's setup, and Rhyperior is gonna crap dicks all over your team if TR gets set. Fortunately, you have Sky Drop. Sky Drop the Aromatisse while Rhyperior hopefully either switches in fear of wide guard or protects, and go to Metagross. When Aerodactyl lands with the Sky Drop, Meteor Mash Aromatisse and ta-da—you successfully ruined Trick Room.

Oh ok. That makes more sense. In your scenario, you do run a risk of Rhyperior using EQ and Aromatisse using Protect in your scenario which, whilst aimed at Heatran, would counter your Sky Drop + Metagross switch plan, but I understand what you're trying to say.

Now that I think about it, Sky Drop can also be useful for setting up. Pair Mega Aerodactyl with a TR user, use Sky Drop and TR on the same turn. Mega-A will grab and outspeed the opponent it grabs on the first turn, and then it will underspeed the opponent on the second turn when TR is up. This means that the Sky Dropped Pokemon misses two turns instead of one. However, Mega-A will be much less useful once it lands given that TR is up.

 

[BLOOD TOTEM]

I don't really have that much to input on the topic. All I have to say is I thought this would be a shitty gimmick, but really it does have some competitive use. If used correctly it can be abused to create free setup opportunities for dangerous Pokemon such as SD Excadrill and QD Volacrona. Hell, you might even be able to fire up SD Landorus-T if you're good enough and that'd be a nightmare to face.

 

[Speedholes]

Are people sure that the limitation about Sky Drop being impossible against heavier mons is actually real? Here's a video that shows a normal Aerodactyl successfully Sky Dropping a Goodra:

(skip to 4:40)
I was under the impression that Sky Drop always worked in Wifi battles and was only affected by weight for in-game battles. Has this already been proven in the research thread or anywhere else?

 

[Mr. Blinky]

I have been testing the weight limit of Sky Drop. I used my Aerodactyl (weight 130.1 lbs) and Hawlucha (weight 47.4 lbs) and lifted things up to and including Lunatone (370 lbs) with each of them. I was not able to lift a Metang (weight 446.4 lbs). I first thought that there was a ratio'd weight limit based on the weight of the user, but that was proven incorrect. My educated guess is that the cutoff for Pokemon that can be Sky Dropped is at 441 lbs. That is the cutoff for which Grass Knot and Low Kick deal maximum damage, so it seems a pretty safe guess. A list of Pokemon weights is found here on Bulbapedia

Edit: It also dealt damage to Lunatone and Haunter, appearing to bypass the Levitate immunity from Gen V.

 

[AuraRayquaza]

The was one battle i had (unfortunately dont have the replay) where my mega-aerodactyl picked up a lando t, but when it dropped the lando, it said the sky drop did no damage and that lando t was immune. Anyone have this as well?

 

[Project_Mars]

You can pick up flying-types, but not damage them.

 

[Pocket]

I have been testing the weight limit of Sky Drop. I used my Aerodactyl (weight 130.1 lbs) and Hawlucha (weight 47.4 lbs) and lifted things up to and including Lunatone (370 lbs) with each of them. I was not able to lift a Metang (weight 446.4 lbs). I first thought that there was a ratio'd weight limit based on the weight of the user, but that was proven incorrect. My educated guess is that the cutoff for Pokemon that can be Sky Dropped is at 441 lbs. That is the cutoff for which Grass Knot and Low Kick deal maximum damage, so it seems a pretty safe guess. A list of Pokemon weights is found here on Bulbapedia

Edit: It also dealt damage to Lunatone and Haunter, appearing to bypass the Levitate immunity from Gen V.

Intriguing post, Mr. Blinky - do you happen to have a video of this battle?

 

[Stratos]

I have been testing the weight limit of Sky Drop. I used my Aerodactyl (weight 130.1 lbs) and Hawlucha (weight 47.4 lbs) and lifted things up to and including Lunatone (370 lbs) with each of them. I was not able to lift a Metang (weight 446.4 lbs). I first thought that there was a ratio'd weight limit based on the weight of the user, but that was proven incorrect. My educated guess is that the cutoff for Pokemon that can be Sky Dropped is at 441 lbs. That is the cutoff for which Grass Knot and Low Kick deal maximum damage, so it seems a pretty safe guess. A list of Pokemon weights is found here on Bulbapedia

Edit: It also dealt damage to Lunatone and Haunter, appearing to bypass the Levitate immunity from Gen V.

According to Marty D, the resident knows-literally-everything, every Pokemon can sky drop every other pokemon that is less than 200kg (ie 441 lbs). Good guess! blame lucariojr for the misinformation i spread earlier :o (tagging so he can stop using dragonite)

pocket get on irc

 

[Laga]

Since I am pretty sure everything (even some research) was covered in this totw, it is time to move on to a new one. I am posting it this time, since Audiosurfer unfortunately has quit smogon forums :(. I am amazed by how many people were involved in this discussion, so there are many points to give out this time! :D

3 points - youngjake93, Nollan, Electrolyte
2 points - Pwnemon, Darkmalice, Lasagne21, Branflakes325
1 point - BlankZero, lucariomaster2, Ultimathunder, Pocket, SomeoneStoleTheNameIWant, SpeedHoles, Mr. Blinky.

Here is the next Topic of the Week: MAKE IT RAIN

With the advent of a new generation, Game Freak saw it important to nerf the auto-weather setting abilities to the same as Rain Dance. While Rain teams were extremely popular in generation 5 due to the sheer power of all the swift swim rain sweepers that had both their speed and their Water STAB moves boosted. Now that GF has decided to nerf rain, how will this impact the new Doubles metagame? Is rain still a legitimate playstyle, or is Politoed just dead weight? Are the Swift Swim sweepers consistent enough to be able to do relevant damage with their weather put on a timer? These are good questions I suggest you try answering and discussing.

Happy posting =]

 

[Pocket]

Laga will post this topic on the new TOTW thread. RIP Audiosurfer - plz return soon :<

 

[Audiosurfer]

Ok, I'm back from the dead, and with it Topic of the Week is revived as well. First things first, time to take care of points. While I won't link to all of the posts since they took place in the other thread (feel free to look at them here if you're interested) I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the last TOTW. There were some great discussions that took place regarding Rain's viability post weather nerfs and its place in the metagame.

Points Breakdown:
+3 – Darkmalice, Nollan
+2 – BLOOD TOTEM, Lasagne, Skore
+1 – Pocket, Project_Mars, youngjake93

The new Topic of the Week is: Shielding Moves

That's right, shielding moves. That means anything to do with moves such as Protect, Detect, and Wide Guard is up for discussion this week. What Pokemon do you think can forgo these sorts of moves? How useful do you think moves such as Feint are given how common Protect is? Is an item like Assault Vest worth sacrificing the utility of a shielding move? Questions such as these are things you should consider when discussing this topic. Good luck :)

 

[Laga]

Protect is amazing as ever for obvious reasons - scouting opponent's coverage options, stalling out non-permanent speed control, and playing around obvious plays (avoiding double-targeting). No need for any real discussion about this move.

The other moves that are used most though – Wide Guard and Quick Guard – have both very different uses and both fit on different team archetypes. What I have found is that Wide Guard best on Balanced teams and bulky offensive teams where you can quickly guard your Heatran from that EQ against Landorus-T instead of having to switch in your Rotom-W first (example). Also a better support option for most set-up mons due to the fact that these are usually weak to some or more spread moves.

Quick Guard, on the other hand, is more fit for hyper offensive teams due to the fact that these teams archetypes usually are not sturdy enough to handle much priority. For example, Deoxys-A highly appreciates Quick Guard support due to its huge weakness to Fake Out / Feint combo as well as other common priority - Scizor BP, talonburd BB.

Other Protecting moves are only signature moves - Spiky Shield (Chesnaught sucks), and Aegislash's King's Shield is always a nice 50-50 between dropping your opponent's attack two levels or dying trying to predict the double target on your partner.

 

[Haruno]

Protect is about as important as ever, whether it be for stalling out your opponents weather/trickroom/secondary damage or if it's used to scout, the use of protect/detect is about as dominant as ever. Easily the most important move in game with detect > protect for the rare imprison protect mons.

Wide and quick guard got a massive buff this generation from being a gradual 50% drop in success rate per continual use to never failing (though continual usage does reduce protect/detect's success rate if used immediately after wide/quick guard). This is important in many ways since your opp can no longer just spam spread/priority moves consecutively and hope that wide/quick guard fails.

Wide guard being the more prevalent of the two thanks to the fact that spread moves are everywhere, whether it be heat wave from zard Y or eq from landog. Wide guard is guaranteed protection against it and forces your opp to run single target moves in addition to adding pressure onto your opponent by forcing them into 50-50's that otherwise wouldn't have been available without wide guards presence. A niche use would be using wide guard to protect oneself from your own spread moves that target everything including earthquake/surf/boom/etc. Overall a very metagame defining move that is commonly seen on mons like aegis/hitmontop thus providing massive team support.

Quick guard has far less usage than wide guard does and for good reason, being stuck at +3 priority leaves you struggling against fake out (assuming the user is faster) alongside the fact that priority isn't anywhere near as common as spread moves are. Though quick guard has obvious uses in stopping mons like thund-i, klefki, yolobird, scizor bp among other things. Quick guard does have its uses though it isn't as versatile as wide guard is, not to mention quick guards users are more limited as opposed to wide guard since the only common users of quick guard are talonflame and hitmontop.

Chesnaught sucks.

Aegislash loves kings shield for the ability for a harsh attack drop and to deter physical attackers lacking eq from attacking it nonchalantly, though not being able to guard against status moves suck hard. Still an incredibly useful move regardless.

 

[Lasagne]

king shield is a really cool move. The ability to give -2 attack to any opponent who uses a contact move is awesome, as well as guarding from any direct attacks using this, you can hinder Pokemon like talonflame using flare blitz and Kangaskhan trying to crunch. These Pokemon instantly become much weaker. Talonflame is pretty much forced to switch out, and kanga has to use power up punch if it wants to get back to having decent attack, otherwise all its hits are weak as shit with -2 attack. Unfortunately, kings shield doesn't block status, which can be very annoying at times. When you would usually protect to avoid a will-o-wisp from rotom-w or a spore from Amoonguss, you have no way to block the incoming status move outside of switching to a Pokemon to absorb the status (fire type for burn, grass type for sleep, etc.). Because of this, I find lum berry to be a good item for aegislash to hold, as it can get rid of annoying statuses that you don't see coming. Also earthquake is still annoying as fuck, but that's where aegislash's other awesome shielding move comes in.

wide guard is a great move in doubles, and for good reason. With all the Charizard Ys and heatrans running around firing off heat waves, and landogs shooting earthquakes everywhere, wide guard comes in really useful. The Gen 6 buff did so much for wide guard (and quick guard). The ability to use it repeatedly as much as you please is really really nice, and allows for mindgames with your opponent. Aegislash is a great wide guard user, as not only does it block the common heat wave and earthquake spam that aegislash is weak to, it can also help support a teammate who may be weak to the same spread moves, or others such as rock slide and blizzard. If an opposing mega Charizard y, for example, was to predict the wide guard and simply use fire blast or overheat on your aegislash, you could predict that with kings shield to completely absorb the attack. Hitmontop is another solid wide guard user. It pairs fantastically with Pokemon like volcarona and Charizard y, which hate rock slides. Hitmontop already puts off opposing rock slide users with the rock resist thanks to being fighting type, and also has intimidate to lower their attack so rock slide (and any other physical attacks they may use) doesn't do as much damage.

 

[Laga]

king shield is a really cool move. The ability to give -2 attack to any opponent who uses a contact move is awesome, as well as guarding from any direct attacks using this, you can hinder Pokemon like talonflame using flare blitz and Kangaskhan trying to crunch. These Pokemon instantly become much weaker. Talonflame is pretty much forced to switch out, and kanga has to use power up punch if it wants to get back to having decent attack, otherwise all its hits are weak as shit with -2 attack.

Problem with king's shield is that it creates a 50-50. On one hand, the opponent predicts your King's Shield and double attacks your partner or gets a free switch. On the other hand, attacking you is risking a -2 Attack stat which forces the mon to switch out. Obviously the lower level players will consistently use King's Shield, but at a high level of play, this is pretty much an exact 50-50. Protect, on the other hand has very little risk with it as your opponent doesn't have to predict it.

 

[Darkmalice]

Regarding King's Shield, I agree with everyone that it is an awesome move. In addition to its normal uses of Protect and being necessary to revert Aegislash back to Blade form, it deters deters your opponent from using contact attacks on it, including super-effective moves like Tyranitar's Crunch, with the exception of Sucker Punch. Btw Lasagne , Kang should be using Sucker Punch on Aegislash, not Crunch. If it uses King's Shield, Sucker Punch will fail and not triggering a -2 Atk drop unlike Crunch.

Failing against status is bad, but not as bad as what everyone's made it out to be. Aegislash should be running a special moveset so it doesn't mind the Atk drop from Burn unless you use Shadow Sneak, and it's slow so it doesn't mind being paralysed either. Getting put to sleep, however, is awful. You still change forms when asleep depending on what attack you choose, so if you want to wake up and attack in the same turn, you risk changing to attack form in a turn that you may not wake up thus exposing its low defense without any gain. To avoid this, you need to use King's Shield or Wide Guard on every turn unless you've been asleep for 3 turns (then you're guaranteed to wake up). Or better yet, pair Aegislash with a Pokemon immune to Spore, or allies that can at least apply enough offensive pressure to deter your opponent from using sleep moves.

The more common issue I find with King's Shield is that it is predictable. It is common to predict when Aegislash uses King's Shield, usually to revert back to Shield form after attacking in blade form in order to avoid being KOed from Blade form's low defence. Of course, prediction works two ways; the Aegislash user could simply attack or use Sub in such a scenario whilst your opponent, thinking Aegislash would use King's shield, has double targeted Aegislash's ally. However, I usually find the King Shield's prediction wars end up working against Aegislash, even though it is theoretically 50-50 - yes it's 50-50 at high level play like Laga said, but most of the ladder is not at that level of play. It doesn't help that there is also prediction regarding if Aegislash will use Wide Guard / Sub or not.


Chesnaught does not suck - it got a VGC team to #2. To be more precise, Chesnaught has niche uses, but it's difficult to justify its uses, which means that whilst Spiky Shield is a brilliant move, it doesn't seen much use. Cutting 1/8th of a HP against contact moves, whilst helpful, usually isn't enough to change the outcome of the battle and improve Chesnaught's viability. It would be helpful against Focus Sash users, but they usually don't use contact moves, and if they do, they don't use them on Chesnaught, including Landorus-T's U-turn.


I thought Mat Block was going to get the "this sucks" comments. Well it's not awful, but it's generally not worth the slo. That's in large part due to the prevalence of answers for it, like Fake Out, Choice Scarf users, and priority, especially Conkeldurr's Mach Punch which hits Greninja super-effectively (even if Greninja predicts a Mach Punch and uses Protect, it will still be weak to Mach Punch the next turn, where as Greninja won't be OHKOed by other priority). If you can pull it off, it's the perfect move for letting a Pokemon set up a move of its choice. But it is far more team match-up dependent than Fake Out or Rage Powder / Follow Me, which can help set up more reliably against most teams. And in certain scenarios where Greninja can use Mat Block, the opponent can always switch out or double protect, so it's not exactly wasting both of your opponent's two attacks that turn.


There's Detect too. Which is essentially a slightly better Protect - one that won't be blocked by Imprison - a rare but viable strategy (see Imprison Landorus-T). The likelihood of seeing Imprison is more than running out of Detect PP, which never happens.

Quick Guard and Wide Guard have been discussed well already.

 

[youngjake93]

I'll focus on Protect since some people believe the move central to why doubles is such a skill/prediction-based meta unworthy of discussion :p

Pokemon known to commonly drop Protect w/o going choiced or vest are Rotom-W, Hitmontop, Amoonguss, Kangaskhan, Ludicolo and Cresselia. These Pokemon do not have common weaknesses, have good bulk or resistances and have very effective movepools in this meta to jam into 4 slots. They can afford to switch out(rather than Protect) to come back later either to take advantages of matchups or reactivate Fake Out.

Dropping Protect is by no means horrible, but it does put more strain on the defensive backbone of your team. Even a very defensively sound team will sometimes struggle against partners with great offensive synergy, such as the Deo-A+QG Terrakion combo or Rotom-W+Heatran, but the struggle will be ESPECIALLY apparent when some of your Pokemon decided to drop Protect. The general rule of thumb is at least 3 Pokemon should carry Protect. And you should have some reason for the others not to carry it(item disallows it, Fake Out/Follow Me created 4mss, etc). Also, it is hard to punish your opponent for making obvious plays if you can't really do anything about it thanks to dropping Protect.

In my opinion, the higher level meta has evolved dramatically around the use of Protect. There are several occasions where it would be just a downright dumb play for the opponent to not switch out or use Protect. Over time, people get used to seeing their attacks being blocked and have started to run more Swords/Dragon Dance and Substitute sets. These moves have pretty little use in ladder play because you usually can expect to be attacked basically every turn. But in tournament play where smart Protects and switching are actually very common, set up opportunities are much more frequent. Protect also helps these moves be viable because for those Pokemon that dropped Protect, the threat of Protect alone can cause a setup opportunity sometimes. More notably, Pokemon that have set up and DO have Protect get a big target on their chest which makes prediction much easier.

Speaking of that big target, that is why some Pokemon are almost forced to run Protect and use the move often. Pokemon like Skymin, Charizard Y, Deoxy-A etc that just want to tear a team to shreds, but have little desire to wall attackers are just asking to be targeted on almost every turn. Any Pokemon not OHKOd is a liability. This is why these Pokemon almost NEVER go into battle without Protect and often are the Pokemon getting the most use out of the move. Surviving even 1 more turn could mean 1 more KO! And their bullseye often creates some free turns for you if you can Protect and play around it properly.
Similarly, any Pokemon with a common-enough exploitable weakness(particularly 4x ones) are also exemplary strong cases as to the usefulness of Protect.

In closing, I wonder how different the meta would be w/o Protect. It would probably feel much more similar to the singles metagame. It is interesting that some people have considered Stealth Rocks broken in BW singles due to being so common, powerful and basically mandatory. Protect in dubs is significantly MORE common, and arguably even more powerful and mandatory. However, I think most people would agree that Protect is a healthy game mechanic that actually encourages skill-based plays.


Oh and my thoughts on King's Shield are that(assuming we weed out ballsy or dumb plays) it is only a 50/50 if Aegislash's partner is worth double-targetting AND poses a threat worth that could justify risking an incoming Aegislash attack OR you are using a contact move. Usually imo it is worth targetting Aegislash even if you are very sure it will Shield up just because of risk vs reward. Also, I feel as if most moves that you would want to use against Ghost/Steel aren't usually contact moves anyway. The 50/50 is really prevalent against something using Knock Off or Crunch, but that's about it imo.

 

[Haruno]

Chesnaught does not suck - it got a VGC team to #2. To be more precise, Chesnaught has niche uses, but it's difficult to justify its uses, which means that whilst Spiky Shield is a brilliant move, it doesn't seen much use. Cutting 1/8th of a HP against contact moves, whilst helpful, usually isn't enough to change the outcome of the battle and improve Chesnaught's viability. It would be helpful against Focus Sash users, but they usually don't use contact moves, and if they do, they don't use them on Chesnaught, including Landorus-T's U-turn.

Completely irrelevant. How well a mon does in vgc has no correlation with how well it does in smog doubs. Why you ask? Vgc has no legends whatsoever. Vgc has no sleep clause and thus making grass typing a good typing to have. Comparing how well a mon does in vgc is like comparing a mons viability in ou and comparing it to its usage in ubers.

 

[Joim]

Protect
As good as usual. Everyone seems to point out what's good about it, but what about what's bad about Protect? Namely, it's overuse. Using Protect too much can lower your damage output, your threatening presence, can make you lose a turn and makes you lose momentum. Protect is excellent, but you must know when to use it. Sometimes bluffing a Protect to then deal a huge blow could be definitive for the result of the battle.

You must also take into account the Pokémon that can use Feint on you, you can then bluff Protect and attack instead or consider risk v reward in attacking or switching.

Wide Guard
While this move is excellent, it's circumvented by using a single target move. It might seem obvious, but it's not, you should always carry an alternative to deal with Hitmontop + partner, Aegislash + partner, and other common Fighting-types with it. Wide Guard is the best friend of several mons including Aegislash itself, namely Mega-Mawile's main fear is to get EQd or H Waved, so Wide Guard support makes the mon much better. Attacking or Taunting the Wide Guard user means using a turn on shutting it down that you can use to get a better position, so the strategical use of this move can lead to a victory.

You should not spam it because then you'll be clear to read and it will become obvious when to use the single-target move. Sometimes you can't risk it, though, say there's Landog using Earthquake, well, you better press Wide Guard again just in case if it can KO either Pokémon in the field. Better safe than sorry.

Quick Guard
Kinda like the move above, only this move offers excellent support against Scizor, Talonflame, and Prankster users mainly, additionally against one of the Mach Punch users that are sometime seen, namely Conkeldurr and Breloom. Quick Guard can easily turn games as seen in SPL, the power to block a Fake Out and thus let your strong attacker to deal a blow it would otherwise not deal is great.

King's Shield
This move is not as good as some people put it, as it doesn't block status and most mons won't attack Aegislash with contact moves, but it's nonetheless an absolute must on its moveset. It's bad that you can expect your aegi to be burned often, but then again changing formes allow Aegislash to live some hits and then hit extremly strongly, giving it in those turns an effective 150 offenses and defenses.

This move is most likely the most tactical of all the protecting moves due to the forme switch. Knowing when to be in defensive forme and when to be in offensive is critical in using Aegislash, and going back and forth makes you a threat to an opposing team.

 

[BlankZero]

Completely irrelevant. How well a mon does in vgc has no correlation with how well it does in smog doubs. Why you ask? Vgc has no legends whatsoever. Vgc has no sleep clause and thus making grass typing a good typing to have. Comparing how well a mon does in vgc is like comparing a mons viability in ou and comparing it to its usage in ubers.

Actually that's kind of false information. VGC strategies have been adopted successfully into SmogDubz since the beginning of the tier. VGC has plenty of "Legends", just no Event Mons. SmogDubz will be testing Sleep Clause quite soon and we may not have it anymore.

You know better than that Haruno