Resource Union Street - Casual Discussion Thread

[LouisCyphre]

dropping this here in passing since it's a slight departure from in-game. it'll end up in a patch note when we have enough for a post

problem: criticals are the accepted counter to defensive stat stages, and to screens. however, the base critical chance (which is important adding some variance to second order) essentially makes moves like Iron Defense or Reflect essentially only 88% reliable, which is hindering their usability at a base level.

solution: critical hits will only "pierce" these stat stages and screens when they're deliberately called upon (specifically, when the attacker's critical hit stage is 1 or greater). this means that answers to the above are plentifully distributed throughout the entire game, but also that simply typing Attack x 3 doesn't invalidate these defensive tools on their own.

as a reminder, "high crit rate" moves including those such as Frost Breath do increase the attacker's actual crit stage, which includes them in this rule.

this functionality is written into rule 8.10d "Critical Modifier"

 

[P2X7]

Re: Zuki
Hazards are definitely a strong strategy against this sim. Due to the Eeveelutions' shallow coverage, one can simply pick something like Ferrothorn on the first round, sub for the relevant Let's Go move, and enjoy two layers worth of pressure for the rest of the game. A player who feels particularly motivated to succeed might consider bringing a Hisuian Samurott or Kleavor, as each hits the majority of Zuki's Pokemon super-effectively while efficiently stacking hazards with their sig moves; Samurott is especially deadly because it can tear through Espeon, Zuki's anti-hazard defense measure, with Ceaseless Edge.

While Extreme Evoboost is still the most dangerous weapon in Zuki's arsenal, the loss of Stored Power helps blunt its effectiveness to the point that a Dark-type is no longer crucial to a team's success. Haze, Clear Smog, and Mirror Herb dissuade the Z-Move's use, and Opportunist effectively removes Evoboost from consideration—especially when backed by an Ability-copying Item or Ability.

Also, as Eeveelutions generally enjoy their Abilities, Ring Target and Neutralizing Gas should be useful here.

 

[Uranium233]

What does the highest-combo type mean when ordering combinations (wish i had access to discord rn)
Edit: thx pratik + city

 

[Novax]

In the dat , there is a combo level. A combo has the type of the move of the highest level . They are numbered and their order is Set>Force>Elemental>Passive>Deferring

When 2 moves have same level , the combo has the type of the move with more BAP . When both the moves have same bap and combo level then the type of the first move is taken

 

[cityscapes]

What does the highest-combo type mean when ordering combinations (wish i had access to discord rn)

each move has a combo type between 0 (deferring) and 4 (set), listed in the data audit. the move with the higher combo type determines what type the combination is. so if you have say ice beam (2, elemental) + hyper beam (1, passive), then the combo will be ice type

 

[TMan87]

Hey all, Pratik and I are looking for some useful community insight over my recent Realgam run. We would like for peeps to analyze what happened during this match and point out what could have been done better on both sides. It was a really close match and some minor adjustments may have shifted the scales of victory one way or another.
Thanks~

 

[Candelia]

Kinda stupid question, but if my opponent does not send their team and items to the referee, am I allowed to requeue?

if not that's okay

 

[Gemini Taurus]

Candelia usually its common to wait a few days before taking action for battle sendins. Likely your ref will send your opponent a message if things start taking too long. The good news is that you aren't limited to one battle at a time, so if you're eager to get things going still, you can post another battle and get that one going!

 

[Candelia]

Gemini Taurus, that helped a lot, thanks :D

 

[cityscapes]

i was checking out veluza cause that guy is cool but the design of fillet away makes no sense to me:

"The user discards any unnecessary flesh, numb to pain as they focus on mauling prey.

(This move costs HP, equal to 50% of the user's current HP rounded down. If the cost can't be paid, somehow, this move fails.)

Raise the user's Attack, Special Attack, and Speed stages by two (2) each for the user's next six (6) turns, without extension."

this is just not a move i would ever want to click. the design makes it look like something you'd want to use when your mon gets low, so the cost is less relevant. let's say you click it at 40 hp. so you lose 20 hp but get +2 atk +2 spa +2 spe. you now need to survive 2 attacks (being generous cause of stored power's existence) to go hp-neutral, and even then you aren't even turn-neutral.

fillet away is an order of magnitude less explosive than drum with arguably a greater cost. fringe move on an already fringe mon

 

[P2X7]

Amusingly, Veluza is the only Pokemon that learns Fillet Away without also learning Shell Smash. This means that, in most situations, Fillet Away must compete for usage against a Move that has an identical Type, Energy cost, and Stage boost size and duration (with the same inextensibility clause), but that costs its users only about 12-16 HP against anything strong enough to threaten a 4HKO and that can be used early and repeatedly in a battle. Also, in situations that would minimize the HP lost to Fillet Away, Shell Smash has little or no drawback; e.g. at 40 HP Fillet Away costs 20 HP, but Shell Smash effectively costs nothing because practically everything in our game can deal 20 damage per action without tallying a Defense drop.

This isn't to say Shell Smash is too good; Fillet Away's just very bad. Maybe add a line to Sharpness saying "the user's sharp blades cut precisely without waste, reducing the HP cost of Fillet Away by half."

 

[Mowtom]

As pointed out in the discord, "IF Scizor is to use Knock off , use Fire Spin if S3 AND Razor Wind otherwise" antipedants to "If Scizor is to use Knock Off, then use Fire Spin this step, keep Fire Spin on step 3, and use Razor Wind this step"

I assume this being legal is very much a bug rather than a feature, and as such am posting it here so it doesn't vanish with the ephemerality of discord conversations.

 

[Candelia]

so if I may ask

How is Melmetal obtained? It's a mon I really like because of its tankyness and its weird charm. Is it an event-only mon?

 

[TMan87]

so if I may ask

How is Melmetal obtained? It's a mon I really like because of its tankyness and its weird charm. Is it an event-only mon?

Meltan is a League Circuit reward as described in this post. You can then spend 1 TC to evolve it into a lv1 Melmetal like any other Pokémon.

 

[Candelia]

Meltan is a League Circuit reward as described in this post. You can then spend 1 TC to evolve it into a lv1 Melmetal like any other Pokémon.

ah, a goober I won't be able to snag for a while, that's fair

also also one last noobie question (for now); what items should I prioritize with RC?

 

[LouisCyphre]

Try picking up items that let you control match-ups (Eject Button and Red Card) at least. Being in a good match-up will help you keep control of a match. And once they're consumed, your Pokemon is free to hold something else, next time they come in.

Afterwards, people may recommend counter-items like Sticky Barb or Rocky Helmet, but I think you should buy one or two generic damaging items that suit your Pokemon: Expert Belt for Pokemon with powerful non-stab moves, Razor Claw and Razor Fang for Pokemon who use applicable attacks, Gems for Pokemon who pivot a lot, or just Life Orb generically.

Having ANY damage option is important, so you can KO opponents before they get a chance to switch, but they're all pretty interchangeable. Once you have a couple of those, you can probably safely start rounding out your collection with counter-items for various situations. Rocky Helmet, Covert Cloak, and Cleanse Tag are all very powerful for this.

Once you have a good foundation of items, you'll probably be fine just buying whatever you think is interesting, be it damage, defense, or utility. I would look at Circuit and TLG matches to see what items are favored by trainers competitively. And if you want a suggestion from players as to what item is preferred on or against a particular Pokemon, this is the place to ask.

 

[TMan87]

As far as consumables go, Weakness Policy has gotten better with the overhaul to stat boosts.
Gemini Taurus might have opinions about Berries so I'll tag him.

 

[Candelia]

Decided to snatch a Razor Claw for my Mimikyu since I like using Shadow Claw and X-Scissor with her (not like she wasn't already great enough)

In the future, what mons should I aim for? I know there's a meta, there has to be

 

[Maxim]

Decided to snatch a Razor Claw for my Mimikyu since I like using Shadow Claw and X-Scissor with her (not like she wasn't already great enough)

In the future, what mons should I aim for? I know there's a meta, there has to be

The meta is a bit tricky to define right now, since a lot of rules changed and some new Pokémon still need to be trained. But I’ll see what I can do.

First, avoid Pokémon with 4x weaknesses…

Nah I’m just kidding. Here’s what’s actually up.

The top end of the pile has been largely dominated by Dragonite. He has a fantastic stat line, a movepool that stretches all the way to Generation 1, and Multiscale. This ability halves all direct damage during any round he starts with full hit points. This makes the first round against it very difficult, especially when ordering first. If the first round gets messed up, with say Roost, you can easily end up with a Dragonite that is still at full hp and a second round, which will usually end the match right there. Similar threats are Hisuian Goodra and Zygarde. The former has a ridiculous stat line, typing, and ability set that make it formidable. The latter has crazy defensive stats and 135 hit points. Though until Pike releases I’m the only one with a Zygarde.

Another set of powerful Pokémon are fighting types. The terror of the format was Conkeldurr, who has a powerful stat line and awesome abilities. So amazing was the ability set that a rule had to be implemented to basically only allow one of them to be active at a time. The rising star is Gallade who received Sharpness in Generation 9. This ability boosts its coverage to insane heights and makes Psycho Cut a great STAB option. Combine this with a Mega Stone or Razor Claw and you have a deadly attacker. Personally though I’m banking on Machamp who has a Gigantimax form and accurate Dynamic Punches to really mess with things, but he is a bit untested.

Sandstorm abusers are some of the nastiest threats. Specifically Tyranitar is a terror of the format. When it summons Sandstorm and has a +Def nature. It gets an effective bulk of 95/10/10, which only gets worse if it has a mega unlocked. Add in a Generation 2 movepool and it’s very difficult to break. There has been a lot of attention on Probopass lately. It has to manually set up sandstorm, but once it does Sand Force turns a traditionally passive Pokémon into a powerhouse.

As for special attackers, I’m not so sure what is ultra powerful here. I’ve heard of Hatterene being good, though I personally consider it a bit too frail. Still, Magic Bounce is not to be underestimated. A classic example is Gengar who has Generation 1 movepool and tons of tricks.

That said there are a lot of Pokémon that can do their tasks well. These are just some of the best that I’ve found in recent months.

 

[P2X7]

The meta generally favors Pokemon with high stats, good Abilities, and good movepools. While the former two traits are self-explanatory, a natural question to ask is what constitutes a "good movepool." Well, it's as many as possible of >9 BAP STAB-boosted Moves, >10 BAP coverage Moves, hazards/removal, Knock Off, self-switching Moves, phazing Moves, non-Swagger Status conditions, Screens, D/E Moves, and Moves that can swing a matchup when ordering second (e.g. Counter/Mirror Coat/Bide/Metal Burst, Type-changing Moves, or Pain Split). This is partially due to Gen IX's stronger promotion of support Pokemon, but many of these tools are traditional characteristics of good Pokemon and can significantly influence a Pokemon's viability; for instance, ordering first against Alolan Sandslash can be tougher than ordering first against Glastrier despite their notable disparity in stats and coverage because the former wields a full suite of damage-returning Moves alongside Dig, Aurora Veil, and Snow Cloak, while the latter basically just learns attack moves.

The importance of Types is unavoidable, though. Historically, our game has been centralized around the Fairy-Fighting-Steel triangle, as these typings tend to appear on Pokemon with at least one—and often at least two—of the highly desirable attributes of extreme power, high survivability, and deep movepools. If we were discussing Gen VIII BBP, I would tell you that Mega Gardevoir, Equilibra, and Conkeldurr were the three best Pokemon in the game, as they each exemplified these ideas excellently: Mega Gardevoir was arguably unparalleled from Gen VI through Gen VIII due to its good defensive typing, high Special Attack Rank, strong Abilities, and "perfect" movepool; Equilibra had excellent bulk, high-BAP STAB-boosted attacks, and the ability to escape and reverse practically any unfavorable matchup when ordering second through the usage of Doom Desire and Pain Split; and Conkeldurr could 4HKO the entire metagame while boasting above-average bulk, hazard and Item control, and strong priority. Amusingly, Gardevoir and Conkeldurr were comparative rarities in Gen VIII matches despite appearing on many players' profiles, which leads me to believe that most of the playerbase collectively made a gentlemen's agreement to decentralize the game and use different Pokemon, but I digress. All three are still great, and Gardevoir was actually buffed significantly by recent changes to status moves, but the Gen IX metagame isn't quite stable enough to make such assessments again.

This brings us to the anti-meta Types. Other popular Pokemon tended to possess a Poison, Psychic, or Ground typing, as each granted its user valuable, super-effective STAB-boosted attacks against the aforementioned meta triangle without incurring a weakness to any of its Types. These Pokemon would again be selected by the principles that we've already mentioned; this is the domain of your Mega Garchomp, your / (Mega) Gengar, and your / (Mega) Slowbro. For more eclectic options, I personally enjoy and endorse a good Smokomodo, and I've seen Pokemon like Swampert and Alolan Raichu rise in usage over this and the last Generation.

Finally, we have the "new meta" Types. As Maxim mentioned, Dragon-types are positioned well at the start of this generation; Dragonite and Hisuian Goodra are immediate examples, while CAPs like Astrolotl and Cyclohm meld powerful attacking potential with useful support movepools. Moreover, certain skilled players like S0L1D G0LD seem to think Normal-types are strong in Gen IX, and it's hard to argue against the stats, movepools, and Abilities of Pokemon like Snorlax, Ursaluna, and Mega Kangaskhan. We conclude with Grass-types, which are natural beneficiaries of Gen IX's support-oriented rebalancing efforts and have the convenient ability to handle both Ground-types and the increasingly common Water-types; solid offerings from this category include Pyroak, Caribolt, and Tangrowth.


As for Items: Ring Target invalidates many offensive and defensive tactics, while Life Orb—the king of offensive Items—is the most broadly applicable damage-boosting option available and has carried two entire Generations worth of Pokemon through their relevant damage calculations. I'd start with those.

 

[LouisCyphre]

Could I get some eyes on the skeleton for r2.7 "Battling Phase"?

I'm trying to get it to cleanly resolve questions like "do my subs for the actions of sleeping pokemon trigger", without making it so that pokemon struggle if they're awoken early.

That last bit (a Pokemon with a Struggle order reaches back to check their own main orders??) is bizarre rules-wise and I'm fishing for a cleaner solution before writing it into prose.

 

[LouisCyphre]

One of Gen 9's goals was to reduce sticky-thread bloat on the main page and in subforums, which I think we've did.

How do people feel about Feedback threads living on the main forum for a certain amount of time, before being moved to the Policy Center when they're no longer "fresh"? We're currently cooking up a thread on ruling-seeking and post editing that we'd like to not have buried, if at all possible.

Do you all feel like you already have a good awareness of new posts in Policy Center, and don't need the extra reminder?

Edit: I have went ahead and made the thread as a re-direct link. I would be most pleased if you would give it a read.

 

[LouisCyphre]

okay good talk

In the upcoming substitution rules, we're going to have to have rules on how to handle illegal substitutions. We're caught up having to choose one of the following, in a sort of lesser-evil choice:

• If one illegal clause makes the whole substitution illegal: The best angle shot becomes writing a seemingly-abuseable "bait sub" for your opponent to order against that, in reality, will not trigger due to its illegal clause.
• If illegal clauses are ignored and the substitution is interpreted without those clauses: The best angle shot becomes writing a bait sub that works more effectively, or on a broader range of actions, than it seems to work on.

Obviously neither of these are ideal. Some other solutions that we like even less exist, that we've iterated through:

• If we wanted matches to drag on even longer than they presently do, we could just say that orders with illegal substitutions in them can't be accepted or reffed.
• If we wanted matches to be decided basically by popularity contest, we could make referees try to interpret the "intent" of the substitution.

Since the above feedback thread was a roaring success, I think I'll take replies to this post in this thread or via Discord. Weigh in; what's the least objectionable way to resolve illegal substitutions, you think?

 

[epicdrill]

Personally, I favour one illegal clause making the entire substitution illegal, for a few reasons. Some of these are practicality concerns: if you have a sub that says "IF opponent is to use X or Y" and you don't have enough remaining subs for that to anti-pedant into two subs, how do you determine which clause is the illegal one and which one is legal? If you make that entire sub illegal, while generally just ignoring illegal clauses and evaluating the sub otherwise, then you open up *both* possible angle shoots, depending on context. In addition, while I can't think of an example off the top of my head, I don't see any reason it wouldn't be possible to write a(n illegal) sub with multiple anti-pedants, all illegal for different reasons. At that point, how do you choose which anti-pedant to go with? In theory, you could only apply anti-pedant at all when it has a strictly legal equivalence, as opposed to anti-pedant being used on subs that are illegal in the second system, but that leads into my second point.

There will always be reasons beyond specific clauses being illegal that will render the entire sub illegal, such as time travel. I think as long as time travel remains a thing, illegal "bait subs" will be one of the strongest angle shoots around, just by virtue of the fact that time travel is probably the least understood of the sub rules we have right now, and there are a lot of players who get confused by it. I think it's much more reasonable to have people watch for one specific kind of angle shoot (intentionally illegal subs) as opposed to having to watch for both intentionally illegal subs and subs that are more broad than they should be. This is made worse if you restrict anti-pedant to only strictly legal subs, because it means the same sub could be either intentionally illegal or overly broad depending on how it's written.

I also think the second angle shoot is much more broadly applicable than the first one. The vast majority of intentionally illegal subs I've seen have relied on either the result being an order to use a move that your pokemon doesn't actually know or on exploiting time travel, simply because these are a lot harder for an opponent to catch than throwing in an illegal clause. Thus, I don't see banning the first angle shoot (even if it didn't require allowing the second) to have a significant impact on play, just because this particular angle shoot is not the cause of most intentionally illegal subs. On the other hand, if you just allow people to throw illegal clauses in without changing anything, then I could see a lot of value in just always doing that to make your subs harder to read, which is definitely not behaviour we want to encourage.

Finally, as a ref, it's much easier and feels much fairer for me to say "this sub is illegal because of X, Y, and Z", than it is to say "clauses X, Y, and Z are illegal, but clauses A and B are legal, so this is actually just a sub for A and B". The latter just feels much worse to make as a ruling as a ref, especially when clauses X, Y, and Z weren't intended to be bait and *both* players misunderstood the legality of the sub.

 

[TheEver]

First, I'd like to contribute my thoughts on the sub rule discussion by agreeing with epic's post. She pretty much summed up my thoughts on the matter, so I have nothing to add in that regard, other than that is also my opinion.

-----

Now, just as I was against perma-Sleep a little while ago, I am now here to argue against perma-Freeze.

Here is an example: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/realgam-tower-keriel.3719686/#post-9584716

(Yes, the fact that it happened against me inspired me to make this post. It occurred with Powder Snow in this instance, due to it being a Level 1 battle, but you can imagine how much more devastating Blizzard would be here.)

Most of the same arguments from before regarding Sleep apply here. Perma-Freeze takes a bit more effort to set up, requiring the Snow weather condition or the Water Gun condition, and the initial Freeze needing a couple of steps to happen. However, the payoff is that you get to apply Freeze with accurate, damaging moves such as Blizzard (in Snow) or Freeze-Dry, rather than status moves with shaky accuracy. This makes 100-0ing an opponent with this strategy a lot more viable than Sleep was. The combination of Blizzard and at least one of Hail/Snowscape/Water Gun can be used by over 100 fully-evolved mons, not to mention receiving Snow/Water Gun support from a teammate, or the other 2+ Frost counter moves. So, it's not like this is some rare, niche thing either.

While I've attempted to use these strategies in the past when they've been available, I think I'm now firmly against situations where you can just prevent something from ever acting. They feel "cheap" even if there are ways to counter them. Like with Sleep and other status conditions, Freeze can and should still be a strong tool to prepare for.