Trick Room Discussion

MoFro

Serebii AttackDex: http://serebii.net/attackdex-dp/trickroom.shtml

So, I've seen a couple mentions of Trick Room around the forums, and one Trick Room team in the RMT section, but I think that this move is worth some talking. As we all know, it uses up a turn and it only lasts for 5, but Trick Room can really turn the tide against your opponents.

I cite this example, a 2v2 battle on Pokemon Revolution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-v35W8NoZ4&mode=related&search

Solrock holds a Focus Sash so he's not knocked out right away, and after Squirtle Fake Outs the enemy Starmie, Solrock uses Trick Room, which instantly makes him the fastest on the battlefield. Then Squirtle Endures, and Solrock (now first to attack) uses Explosion, wiping out Starmie.

Cue Camerupt, one of my favorite albeit toughest to use Pokemon for competitive battling. With his godawful speed, he can go in and blow everything to smithereens with Overheat because he's first out the gate. A STAB'd 140 base Fire attack with Choice Specs will KO just about anything that doesn't 2x resist it (and there are very few that do, things like Kabutops and Omastar).

I'm curious to know what people think about using this in a competitive setting, in 1v1 matches. Solrock could be swapped for another slow Trick Room user, like Bronzor. Azelf is another Pokemon aside from Solrock who can also use both Trick Room and Explosion. (Bye-bye Palkia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtQlTnS4C1U)

One obvious trouble for this kind of strategy (which relies on a 1HP surivival) is Sandstream, but you would still have the opportunity to use at least the Trick Room attack. Another problem is using it again - in 6-Pokemon team battles the effect will require at least 1 additional use, so it is possible you could have 1/2 of the team which relies on Trick Room (and at least two Pokemon who know Trick Room) and the other half which is normally speedy and able to clean up after the Trick Room effect is gone.

I think this can really turn things around, and turn already monstrous Pokemon like Rhyperior into devastating threats, no matter what the adversaries. Any thoughts or criticisms?
 
MoFro said:
One obvious trouble for this kind of strategy (which relies on a 1HP surivival) is Sandstream, but you would still have the opportunity to use at least the Trick Room attack.
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Just use a pokemon like Solrock or Bronzor who is immune to Sandstorm, like in your examples, to work around this.

Using it with Focus Sash on an Exploder generally seems like a good way to manage the set-up like you pointed out. Since it doesn't need to be baton passed or anything it should be fairly easy to put to good use after that, and unlike the weather effects the opponent can't really stop you taking advantage of it unless it runs a similiar, slow team.

But Trick Room is a nice move since it gives a lot of Pokémon who are crippled by a single bad stat, speed, a better chance to shine.
 
Exeggutor is a decent option for a Pokemon that can blow up and Trick Room, and Tyranitar wouldn't be too willing to switch into a potential STABed Grass Knot despite it not being able to be OHKOed. But you have to remember that Explosion's power is 75% on everybody now, which is a rather large difference.
 
Trick Room is just absolutely amazing. With the metagame revolving around speed so much these days, Trick Room can be a really nasty surprise to a majority of the teams out there. And of course, the first DP team I plan to run is a Trick Room team.

Solrock is a pretty good candidate to start off the Trick Room chain, Explosion is a nice way to make an exit and it can allow your main Trick Room star to enter without harm. Banette and Hypno are also good starters. Banette holding Focus Sash guarantees you a Trick Room due to Insomnia, same with Hypno but I bet Hypno is a bit more durable. Uxie and Bronzong is cool too, but Gaygars likes to sleep things so I don't think Uxie is that effective.

IMO, the best starter for this kind of team is Dusknoir.

Dusknoir@Leftovers
Careful

Trick Room
Shadow Sneak
Thunderpunch/Firepunch/Focus Punch
Painsplit

Shadow Sneak is to get that Gengar that might sleep you, other wise, it's bulky and simply a great way to start off the Trick Room chain.

Now to the fun part, who to send in...

Rhyperior is amazing of course. Swords Dance up and sweep. By the time you Swords Dance with Rhyperior, it's probably turn 3 now, Trick Room will fade in 2 more turns and that gives you a chance to destroy the two Pokemon coming in your way. Stone Edge, Earthquake, Megahorn, shouldn't that cover almost everything? And it's not like Rhyperior can't survive outside Trick Room environment.

Then there's Tyranitar with CB Crunch under Trick Room. Need I say more? I like to run Brave on Tyranitar so nothing can outrun it under Trick Room....except for Slowbro, but he gets Crunched to death.

And speaking of Slowbro, that beast can function great under Trick Room. It can set up Trick Room and be an awesome bulky water on the team, other than that, I really don't see it sweeping or anything. Consider it THE bulky water to have on a Trick Room team.

CBlax or any sort of Snorlax would work too I guess, but CBlax would be best since you wouldn't really waste the turns trying to set up, just hit hard.

There are some BL/UU Pokemon that also works well under Trick Room too. Ursaring (my personal favorite) comes to mind. With attack as high as Salamence, and since speed isn't a problem anymore, it can dish out some major pain. And...Wailord (lolz), it's Water Spout might hurt.

Woo Trick Room
 
I dislike Dusknoir as the lead pokemon on a Trick Room team.
I haven't tried one out yet myself, but I'd much rather use a pokemon the way the person on that first youtube video does: Something slow that's immune to Sandstorm as your lead pokemon that packs both Trick Room and Explosion. The Solrock from the video is a good example, but -Speed natured Claydol and Bronzong could also work quite well.

Trapinch is actually a viable option as well, having only 10 Base Speed and an impressive 100 Base Atk to work with, along with the great ability Arena Trap. After bringing it in by exploding on something, I can see it wrecking quite some havoc. Slap a Choice Band on him, give him a Brave nature and Earthquake and take out the first thing that comes in after the explosion.

I can also see people using a fast pokemon with a priority move as a back-up, say like Ice Shard Weavile. Like has been said, Trick Room doesn't last long enough to sweep through an entire team, so eventually you might need something to finish it off. Choice Band Weavile with Ice Shard might do the job. Ice Shard is there to make it function effectively even with Trick Room in play. His other three moves will most likely be the standard ones, but without Pursuit, seeing as how he's mainly used for late game sweeping where the amount of switches has greatly decreased anyway.

Weavile @ Choice Band
Jolly - 252 Atk, 252 Speed, 4 HP
~ Ice Shard
~ Night Slash
~ Brick Break / Aerial Ace
~ Ice Punch / Aerial Ace

Something like that might work. Ice Shard when Trick Room is still active, Ice Punch otherwise. Aerial Ace is another option, although it's most likely not that useful, because Heracross is most of the time used in the early game, and he's the main reason for using Aerial Ace. Late-game bulky Tyranitars might be more common, so Brick Break could be your move of choice here.
 
It's only for 2v2, any move that hits more than one Pokemon does 75% of the normal damage - same goes for stuff like Earthquake and Surf, etc.
 
In 2v2 battles, any move that targets multiple Pokémon has its power reduced to 75% of its original power.

EDIT: I was too slow! Anyhow, I always liked Bronzong as a Trick Room user. It's phenomenally slow and doesn't get hurt by Sandstorm. It doesn't learn Explosion (which surprised me), but it can do some limited sweeping with Gyro Ball and Earthquake. On another note, if you want the Camerupt to sweep, shouldn't you have Eruption instead of Overheat? In 1v1 it's more powerful and it doesn't lower your SA.
 
Btw, I like the idea of using speedier Pokemon with priority moves to back up in case your "Trick Room stars" go out and you're stuck with a couple turns of Trick Room.

It looks like the only Pokemon who learn Trick Room are Ghosts and Psychics (Porygon, Stantler, Spinda, Kecleon, Palkia and Dialga) are the only exceptions), so Bronzong, Exeggutor, and Claydol make good choices to "refresh" the Trick Room if needed. Just gotta watch out for big TTar weak, if using a lot of Psychics.

There are also a good number of speedier Pokemon who learn it, but with Spd- natures and 0 EVs, considering the amount of Speed EVs you expect out of most teams, it should be okay to use them under Trick Room too.

Edit: Camerupt could use a White Herb. But you're right actually, Eruption would be very potent with Camerupt going first all the time. :)

Another edit: I should add that another one of my favorite parts about a Trick Room team is since you don't care about Speed, it gives you all those extra EVs to put wherever you want!
 
while trick room can be pretty good at times in single battles, here's why i think trick room teams are for 2v2 battles..

- taunt destroys attempts at trick rooming, esp on gyarados, a popular starter who is guaranteed to taunt before you trick room

- with proper prediction and the right resists, all someone would have to do is switch around until 5 turns is up, then proceed to beat you with faster pokemon

- the few pokes that can trick room effectively are pretty predictable, and can be dealt with accordingly

- on the off chance that your opponent has a slower pokemon specifically for trick room use, like say -speed 0 IV rhyperior, then you still get beaten

- priority moves like the quick attacks and protects and sucker punch still go first

- it's not possible to beat an opponent 6-0 in 5 turns unless they use shedinja against sandstorm, so you'd have to reuse trick room at some point or put up with being slower for the rest of the battle

- and finally, if the opponent uses a curse-pokemon against you (aka snorlax), you essentially turn his curse into dragon dance with a defense boost:(
 
Arash said:
- taunt destroys attempts at trick rooming, esp on gyarados, a popular starter who is guaranteed to taunt before you trick room
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The simple solution is to make sure that Trick Room is a benefit for your team and not a necessity. Other options include using faster Pokemon as others have stated for when you can't get Trick Room going.

- with proper prediction and the right resists, all someone would have to do is switch around until 5 turns is up, then proceed to beat you with faster pokemon
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I think you don't realize that's a lot of "ifs" you're assuming. Shit, if I predicted better than Christ himself and had a nebulously-defined team that could hypothetically resist everything with no weaknesses, I would be unstoppable too.

- the few pokes that can trick room effectively are pretty predictable, and can be dealt with accordingly
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I disagree. Just because you know Bronzong or Dusknoir may be packing Trick Room doesn't change the fact they're both a bitch and a half to kill. It's like a DD Gyrados: you know its shtick like the back of your hand but it doesn't mean it suddenly becomes trivial to deal with.

- on the off chance that your opponent has a slower pokemon specifically for trick room use, like say -speed 0 IV rhyperior, then you still get beaten
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How often do you see this on a team not built around Trick Room? Go look through a few pages of RMTs and look for examples, because ATM I don't believe there are any.

- priority moves like the quick attacks and protects and sucker punch still go first
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At 40 power. There's also nothing stopping a Trick Room user from using these moves to their advantage, either.

- it's not possible to beat an opponent 6-0 in 5 turns unless they use shedinja against sandstorm, so you'd have to reuse trick room at some point or put up with being slower for the rest of the battle
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Why is Trick Room somehow at a disadvantage because it's not 6xDD Gyrados in a can? Build a team with the idea in mind that you might need to use it repeatedly.

- and finally, if the opponent uses a curse-pokemon against you (aka snorlax), you essentially turn his curse into dragon dance with a defense boost:(
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If your opponent is using a Curselax, why would you upkeep Trick Room while it's in play? Unless I'm missing something, Snorlax isn't exactly going to start sweeping faces with just one Curse under its belt.
 
I just thought of something, in ubers you could start with the slowest uber dialga and trick room then switch to Groudon with focusslash and swords dance, then you kill all though basterds who though it was funny to hang around in the 307 speed. The things that survive swordsdance groudon are Lugia who can survive a stone edge but with stealth rock it will die, cresslia who probably will not see any play in ubers, deoxys-L, Giratina, and a defensive arceus, everything else is as good as dead.
 
This thread is somewhat old, but I'd like to bring it back with a newer strategy that I beleive is highly viable.

As we are well aware the main focus of DP nowadays is offense, most things are sporting (as far as I'm aware) 299-360 speed (not including scarf users...) Making the potential of medium-speed pokemon as trick room-beneficiaries much higher. Most specifically, I have the following example... at the moment, it's not entirely viable, hence why I post here... I want to see this concept blossom.

Porygon Z, standard sweep focus sash, nasty plot, tri-attack, boltbeam, and of course trick room.

If he's against the slower end of things, he can sweep until he's faced with something he can't take on, at which point, he uses trick room. (Seeing as how he'd have issue with faster things, he carries focus sash)
On that occasion, trick-room... at which point, things get interesting... suddenly, Z is faster then the opponent (let's say, weavile) at which point, either is forced to switch, or ice-shards z to death. Either way, Z either dies, or does slightly more damage to the opponent's team, then dies. (Or, switch out...)

IN COMES MAGNEZONE (which could survive a switch in)... with +spd nature and max speed evs... 240-speed... still slow enough to take advantage of TR... powerful enough to sweep. So, continuing, magnezone sweeps on turn one, then makes subs... subbing down to 1/3, activating salac berry just as TR ends, giving him a happy 360 speed, and the ability to sweep some more.

OR, if you think you can make a sub that will survive on the last turn of TR, you can make a sub then, and each turn after TR ends, make another sub after the TR one was broken. (I see the first tactic to work better.)

For one, it's utterly unexpected, and works with many pokemon other than magnezone, as long as they're willling to use sub/salac, losing a moveslot.

Another example, albeit situational...
Pory-z goes up against Weavile... again... and TR's... and dies by Ice-shard...
In comes hariyama... Weavile has two options... attack and be killed(Hariyama is obviously slower), attempt to set up (and be killed) or switch...
All of this situations, hariyama uses belly drum... attacks, then subs as TR ends... activating salac and putting it in prime sweeping range... At which point, sub could put it into reversing range, or, regular sweeping can work.

There are lots of other ideas yet to be thought up, and loop-holes to be found, but there are many advantages (and counters) that can take advantage of going first (or last) one turn, and doing the opposite the next... especially for faster pokemon with higher defensive abilities (miltank/mismagius,) because, if they survive, they essentially get to move twice in a row... something that could turn the tables in the right situation.
 
I'd have to agree with the poster that said Trick Room is best used in 2v2. For instance, consider something like a Brave Groudon and a Focus Sash Solrock. Solrock uses Trick Room, Groudon uses Swords Dance (because Groudon is Brave and a starter, lead Kyogre will be faster, and thus Groudon's weather will overwrite Kyogre's). Next turn, Groudon Endures, Solrock Explodes, Groudon's Liechi Berry activates (or it has Lum). Send out Follow Me Quiet Latios with Ice Beam and EQ stuff. The only problem is that Latias, Latios, Rayquaza, and Lugia are immune to EQ, but they are OHKOed by Stone Edge with +3 Attack. Get them out of the way and then EQ everything. Alternately, just Dragon Pulse those annoying Lati@s / Rayquaza, and Ice Beam Lugia / Rayquaza, and EQ the other dude.
 
I've always liked using slow Pokemon that make up for it by taking numerous hits and/or generally dishing out the damage, however in DP with everything hitting so hard this became a little less viable with high power sweepers taking out large portions of your HP while also getting to move first. However with Trick Room you can make a lot of tanky Pokemon that kinda got left in Adv more workable with Trick Room. And a lot of Adv's mixed sweepers that are too slow to get attacks off get a shot too.

That said a team the relies on Trick Room is just asking for trouble, however the Trick Room + Explosion combo certainly makes having a dedicated Trick Room sweeper all the move viable.

IMO for a successful Trick Room team you want a bunch of Pokemon that can function on their own (Dusknoir, TTar, Metagross). Other things to consider would be a dedicated Trick Room setup (Solrock, Bronzong, Eggy), a Trick Room refresher (a Pokemon that can use Trick Room but also does other things like Dusknoir), a Pokemon with priority moves can be handy for the turn when Trick Room runs out (Dusknoir, Metagross) but in general you want Pokemon that can function without priority moves and only use them on special cases (for the Pokemon mentioned before, Gengar and Weavile respectively).

Also what about an Iron Orb + Fling combo on a fast Poke? Use the Iron Orb to go first under Trick Room then toss it at the opponent on the last turn to go back to full speed as the effect runs out. Does this work?
 
I just thought this in my head but if an opponent would to predict right, wouldn't you switch out to a TR user and the opponent can get in a quick Sword's Dance, Calm Mind, Nasty Plot, etc?
 
Yes, but that Pokemon that set up with those Swords Dance, etc. would have to be bulky at least, or have a powerful priority move.

Let's say the match starts out with a SD Lucario vs TR Bronzong. What can happen?

1. Lucario attacks Bronzong with Close Combat. Bronzong survives and uses Trick Room. Bronzong now threatens to OHKO Lucario next turn with an Earthquake.
2. Lucario uses SD. Bronzong uses Trick Room. Bronzong now threatens to deal big damage to Lucario with Earthquake next turn, or put Lucario to sleep with Hypnosis.
3. Lucario switches to anything else. Bronzong uses Trick Room. Unless the switch-in is somehow slower than Bronzong, Bronzong threatens to put it to sleep.

Oh, and before anyone mentions Extremespeed, Bronzong resists it.

It's the same fate with SD Weavile, CB or SD Chomp (although Chomp probably will only eat Hypnosis, not OHKO from EQ).
 
Well i've been using a trick room team for a good month now and I have to say I'm still not sick of it. I occassionally change the team members around but I always use trick room as my main strategy.

I used to run with 2 trick roomers but now I do 3 to make sure i can always get 1 of them switched in, between my current set uppers (Bronzong, Jirachi/Uxie and Cresseilia) there is little that one can't switch in against.

Jirachi and uxie have the added benefit of being rather speedy so quite often they'll go last the turn you U-turn so your switch-in is safe. Bronzong is obvious for free switch ins with hypnosis and for cress i've even started to run lunar dance. Trick room the turn before and your slow sweeper has 3 turns of going first and is completely healed, its great.

As for your choices with sweepers well just look at what you want. I use a CB snorlax pretty much all the time as it means i have something that can take on gengar as SP.DEF cress can't take shadow balls well. After that i find you can go with what i call true mixed sweepers. By that i mean things you can just go lazy and put the full 252 EVs into BOTH attacking stats, Camerupt is particulary good with this having that great earthquake STAB. Eruption is a great option as its 225 BP at full heath which is what you are likely to be as you're going first. Add to that 339 Special attack and you find yourself lol'ing when someone switches donphan or weezing in expecting the earthquake.

Another variation i did for a while was run 2 mixed sweepers like this with a choice specs Salamence. Once Eruption or whatever starts getting met by blissey you just explode and bang, there goes the only thing stopping a dragon pulse sweep. I know the same thing could happen in a regular team but usually mixed sweepers can be rather mediocre in normal teams, but you can really go to town when you don't have to worry about speed.

Heres a fun fact, max neutral SP.ATK Rhyperior with life orb OHKO's Garchomp with ice beam and 2HKO's Skarmory with flamethrower. Combine that with max regular attack and STAB Earthquake and Stone edge and for 3 turns you wreck havok. I wouldn't recommend that because it leaves him rather weak defensively, good for a laugh though.

I will probably continue to use trick room for a while and try out more and more new things. At the moment i'm working on a sandstorm trick room team, should be interesting as many of the things immune to sandstorm happen to be nice and slow.
 
This is quite a good move, there is also an item in D/P called the Iron ball which lowers speed of the holder, also makes Flying-types and Levitate Ability using Pokémon vulnerable to Ground moves when equipped to them. This means you can slow donw some of the reguarley fast pokemon to keep them ahead even in trick room.
 
Willypiggy said:
This is quite a good move, there is also an item in D/P called the Iron ball which lowers speed of the holder, also makes Flying-types and Levitate Ability using Pokémon vulnerable to Ground moves when equipped to them. This means you can slow donw some of the reguarley fast pokemon to keep them ahead even in trick room.
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I highly recommend trying this with the pokemon I consider to have "mediocre" speed. The ones faster than that i find usually have too low attacking or defense stats (I even consider something like salamence in this regard, under trick room there are slower things that get comparable moves and stats with the exception of speed). However this is great on something like the base 70-80 speed stuff especially in an item clause enviroment. Gallade comes to mind as a good choice for this kinda thing. I prefer the macho brace if you are flying or levitating though, still slows you down sufficiently but you don't lose your ground immunity.

EDIT: 300th post
 
ah yea, the macho brace... forgot about that ;) also, if you have no pokes left for trick room and it wears of you could use a move to swap the items making your opponent slow.
 
Great Sage said:
Exeggutor is a decent option for a Pokemon that can blow up and Trick Room, and Tyranitar wouldn't be too willing to switch into a potential STABed Grass Knot despite it not being able to be OHKOed. But you have to remember that Explosion's power is 75% on everybody now, which is a rather large difference.
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Um...What?
Explosion is always regular power, even in double battles. It also always halves all targets' defence, even in 2v2.

Edit: Noticed that this was posted long before this was definitively proven. Fucking necrotopic...
 
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