Unused Versatility

[Star Shaper]

Hey, it's Fate again.

I've had something on my mind that has been bothering me. Newer players seem to completely pass over this idea; The logic "It's standard so it works" is outdated and idiotic. What it really means is your opponent will probably predict that the "Standard" set is the set you're using. Take advantage of this.

I've been seeing a lot of Infernape since I've been coming back to shoddy, and I can say that at least 60% I see are Mix/Nasty Plot Mix variations. A big part of Infernape's strength is the fact that it is literally unpredictable, but for the most part everyone uses one set. Infernape has a access to a lot of viable options; Close Combat, Stone Edge, Flamethrower, Grass Knot, U-Turn, Mach Punch, Endeavor, Nasty Plot, Swords Dance. A big part of Infernape's strength is not using a standard set. If your opponent switches in their specially based Mixape counter to your physically based set, if you played well you basically got a free Infernape hit which is game breaking.

For the majority of my battles, I can predict which Infernape I'm coming up against, which is honestly really disappointing. You will get farther with an Infernape your opponent isn't prepared for. This is true for a lot of Pokemon, but Infernape has so much potential that isn't being used by newer players. The metagame is evolving faster than it used to, for sure, but not as fast as it could be. I remember when Bronzong was the top lead for months in a row. That can't happen anymore. Things change. People are creative. Be creative and take advantage of the changs by being ahead of the changes.

I can't stress this enough,

You'll get farther with something your opponent is not ready for than bog standard.

I'm sure better players have realized this by now, but I see the most common set on almost every pokemon used by newer players, which makes it that much easier if I know how to react. We need to promote this idea.

Standard sets on the Strategy Pokedex aren't things you should throw on your team to succeed, but rather, guidelines as to good EVs and viable movesets. You can alter these pokemon to succeed and even build your pokemon to counter common sets. I'm not saying go overboard and use things that flat out suck, but be smart about your sets. You don't have to overpower everything, just everything being used. Which really isn't that much.

Sorry if this has been discussed in the past few months, I've been away.
It just bothers me that versatility, a strong weapon against prediction, isn't being used to its full potential. Infernape just happens to be the biggest case.

 

[Xaqwais]

You could make a case that Salamence is a better case of versatility, but that is beside the point.

As much as I like using uncommon sets, the reason certain sets are used more often than others is the fact that they work, even when people can predict against them. Do not look down on the standard MixApe, as it still can do it's job of wall-breaking.

Your point is valid, but versatility doesn't win matches or anything.

 

[Star Shaper]

I'm not looking down on standard pokemon that work well. I'm saying if you use enforce the usage of the most common set of a Pokemon that can succeed with many different sets, then the set you use will continue to be the most prepared for. By using different sets that are still efficient, you effectively increase the strength of that Pokemon because people can't carry things that can switch into only the most common set anyway.

If pokemon have the ability to absolutely destroy it's common switch ins, then you'd be at a free +1 if you use it correctly. Sure you can sweep teams with specially based mixape, but you can also sweep with physically based sets as well.

My point is, it's easier to force your way through teams if they're unprepared for your Pokemon and they retain viability. The exception may be MixMence, but that's besides the point.

 

[gorm]

your point is kind of moot in the case of laddering, which is where most competitive battling gets done.

when you ladder you want a consistent team. sure it can have tricks up it's sleeves but when you're facing the same opponent twice, you lose a good deal of the "advantage" you built yourself by using an "unconventional set"

anyone can say the metagame lacks originality. go innovate. that's what the "new and creative sets" thread is for but it doesn't stop this kind of thread from popping up every month or so.

 

[Star Shaper]

I'm not saying go overboard with unconventional sets. I'm saying sets that are not used as often that still succeed, for example physically based mixape, should see some more use. It's a huge threat that is used less than other Infernape sets and can cause just as much, if not more, damage to a team because it is prepared for less and has the same if not more viability.

I guess my point is moot though, isn't it? Use the most common set and pay no mind to the others then.

 

[Blue_Tornado]

Agreeing with Gorm. What he pointed out happens a lot.
The idea of originality pays off, however, when you find an un-standard set that works over time. Most of the metagame-shifting pokemon and sets were started by a certian battler that discovered an amazing set out of originality. Take CainChomp and Tyraniboah. Those are examples of sets that changed the metagame of that time completley. Ideas like CroCune, Tickle Wobbufett and more only happened through originality and bravery of going with the unconvential set all the way. Originality and creativity are the keys to new discoveries in pokemon. That's a fact. Though ideas like those come once in a long while. You can't say that every time you try to make something new it has a slight chance of being the new standard. Only the smartest of players will find those sets by exploring the metagame, finding exploitable weaknesses all around and finding a pokemon that can fit the idea. Ideas like, say, EndeavorApe, aren't used that much for a reason. They just aren't effective in the current metagame.
I think I made my point there.

 

[Staraptor Call]

It's also important to sometimes use standard or near-standard sets in unusual ways, either as a lead when the Pokemon is usually a non-lead, or as a non-lead when the set tends to be used as a lead. A good example of this is how some people lead with Mixapes of some kind to eliminate Infernape-beating leads like Swampert. Some teams have leads that prevent SR setup but can't set up Stealth Rock themselves, and then have other "second leads" in their teams to set it up later. My most successful team leads with a ScarfLoom to eliminate on Pokemon early on, either their lead or what they switched in to take the sleep. If they do the latter I can predict the switch back to their lead to get the upper hand. If they do the former I send in my secret weapon "second lead," a Lead Metagross in the middle of my team.

 

[darkie]

I would've replied to this thread earlier, but I was waiting for us to finish releasing The Smog, because what I wrote for this issue is somewhat relevant:

The sets in the analyses are generally considered the best sets for that specific Pokémon; however, Pokémon is not a 1v1 game. It is a team game, and as such, the sets that are best for any given Pokémon are not always the best for a given team. The analyses are merely a list of guidelines, not a set of rules.

How can one tell when alterations to the standards could be necessary? Well, to be frank, the best way is to find out yourself. Once you've made your team using traditional movesets and, most importantly, tested it you should be able to tell which Pokémon work the way they're supposed too as well which don't. For example, say you have a team utilizing Dragon Dance Tyranitar and other Pokémon who are threatened or easily stopped by Scizor. While the traditional solution would be to replace something stopped by Scizor to something that stops or hinders it, you can instead alter your current team in a way that would be beneficial. In this example, you can alter your Dragon Dance Tyranitar's item and moveset in order to help with the Scizor problem; specifically, change one of its moves to Fire Punch and its item to Babiri Berry. This can help eliminate Scizor and open up holes for your other teammembers to take advantage of.

Veering from standard sets, however, is not for everyone. Altering standard sets in ways that can positively affect a team is a skill that requires understanding the nuances of the game. It requires patience; it requires knowledge; it even requires some good luck. The key to success when making changes to what is recommended is, like a lot of things in life, testing. Test to discover what exactly your team lacks; test to find what your team needs; test to see if your potential solution is good. Good luck.

--

Basically, while your notion may be right, it really just depends on your team and what Pokémon you're trying to do this for. Infernape is an example that can very easily be molded into whatever you want it to do, as is Gengar or Blissey to a certain extent. On the other hand, Bronzong is a Pokémon where the standard is standard for a definite reason, and veering away from this - maybe by trying a CM or Charge Beam set, for example - would seriously hinder its potential.

 

[mattj]

You'll get farther with something your opponent is not ready for than bog standard.

Ha. That's soooo true! My lil cousin competed with me at Nationals and ALMOST beat Omegadounut in his 1st match. What's sooooo crazy about that is that HE'D ONLY BEEN PLAYING 4th GEN POKEMON FOR LIKE 1 DAY!!!! His team wasn't properly EV trained and was hastily thrown together (I just took 3 pokes off his Ruby, added one strong EV trained poke of my own and viola!) I'm pretty sure he just got lucky, and it must be said that he plays Emerald/Ruby like ALL the time, but I'm pretty sure you have to chalk at least SOME of it up to the fact that his team was completely unorthadox!

Surprise REALLY CAN give you an edge even when your team tooootally sux!

 

[Ancien Régime]

Yeah, mostly what darkie said, you seem to be advocating the use of alternative sets for the sake of using alternative sets, which is going to lose you a lot of battles if you don't know what you're doing. A good player may use SD Infernape instead of Mixape - but you better know he's doing it for a reason.

For example, my team may deal effectively with many of the threats Infernape normally takes out with its mixed set. Thus, it can afford to run a CB or SD, set to take advantage of its massive Flare Blitz, it's priority, and it's access to U-Turn.

 

[R S E FR LG]

How fun is it to use another person's set? You are basically a robot with OMG prediction. Why do people take the core elements of a game (like raising Pokemon) in competitive play? You are even taking away the originality of the game. Don't make a set like the one I made that got deleted (if you got to see it), but don't just take the sets on the DP pages without effort.

 

[Rook]

Wow, Darkie pretty much got it. But I do have a few other points to make. You say that people are always prepared for bog standards. But honestly, it doesn't even matter sometimes.

Let's say you have a Rotom-H to counter Scizor. But suspecting this, the opponent has has CB Tyranitar at the ready. Tryanitar comes in and pursuits your Rotom-H. All of a sudden, Scizor is free to spam BP's and U-turns all over the place. Now let's say Scizor was a SD variant, quite different than most of the CB Scizors nowadays.Would it have made any difference? No, he still would have swithced to Ttar and kill your Rotom-H.

Now let's take the second most common pokemon, MixMence. You say that all teams are prepared for the bog standards. But how can you be prepared for MixMence? If the other player has good prediction, you have no safe switch-in. But hey, if you have a great MixMence counter, feel free to tell us all.

To wrap things up, I just have to say a few more things. Like Xaqwais said, you don't win matches because you're "different". You win matches using pokemon, or their sets, that can work together and function as a indestructible beast.

And at user R S E whatever, that's a pretty stupid post. Like Darkie said, pokemon's not 1 vs 1. There are six pokemon on your team, which you can get pretty original with, even if you use standards. For example, a "Greek RMT" pretty much only used the bog standards, yet it made it into the RMT archive. I have yet to see one of you teams there. Good Luck making new gamebreaking sets.

P.S. OMG prediction it's not like that's important at all

 

[R S E FR LG]

I suck at making teams, but that's not what I'm saying. Neither is the fact that prediction isn't important, but making your own teams is fun. It's not like sets of a Pokemon that aren't listed on Analysis are horrible. If I were to use Agiligon-Z, but with T-Wave instead of Agility, would that be horrible? Granted it is in the "Other Options" section, but it still isn't a "bog" set (whatever that means).

 

[Rook]

Bog means standard.

IMO, t-wave would be pretty bad. You have an almost zero chance of pulling off a sweep. Sure you can cripple a sweeper, but with agility, you can kill that sweeper and kill/severely other pokemon. That's why it's agiligon-z, and not porygon z-wave.

 

[Nekada]

It kind of applies to anything competitive. If you are taught to play at a certain level, you expect people to react in the certain way. As soon as you play someone with little or no knowledge of high level competition it can throw you off simply becaue their play style is so erratic. Of course erratic doesn't always mean successful as if you play at a high level it probably means you are very good at adapting to difficult conditions.

I kind of see the point here though. I think The Smog's article is probably the closest to being right. I'm sure Bologo would have something interesting to say about this.

 

[tennisace]

Darkie is 100% right about this. Nobody's saying you can't use Porygon-Z with Thunder Wave because your team is pretty slow and you have no other place to fit status in. Generally Smogon sets are more effective on the whole, but a good player customizes Pokemon to fit their needs. As another example, I ran an Aerodactyl lead on the CAP server for ages with Toxic over Taunt, because my team didn't mind SR getting set up but HATED Swampert and Bulky Waters. It tripped up quite a few people at first, and it definitely wasn't standard. However there was a need for it on my team. Don't use odd sets for the sake of using odd sets, like AR said, use them if you have a reason to use them.

 

[Luxormaniac]

darkie bit

So true. Best example I can think of happens to be regarding Infernape. Let's say you are using Special MixApe as a midgame wallbreaker, but you suddenly realize that your team is extremely Lucario weak. From my experience, the best thing to do is make Ape a Physical MixApe with Mach Punch. It's not a "gimmick;" Physical MixApe still eliminates many a threat, has good coverage, and is powerful.

Yeah, mostly what darkie said, you seem to be advocating the use of alternative sets for the sake of using alternative sets, which is going to lose you a lot of battles if you don't know what you're doing. A good player may use SD Infernape instead of Mixape - but you better know he's doing it for a reason.

For example, my team may deal effectively with many of the threats Infernape normally takes out with its mixed set. Thus, it can afford to run a CB or SD, set to take advantage of its massive Flare Blitz, it's priority, and it's access to U-Turn.

Well said.

How fun is it to use another person's set? You are basically a robot with OMG prediction. Why do people take the core elements of a game (like raising Pokemon) in competitive play? You are even taking away the originality of the game. Don't make a set like the one I made that got deleted (if you got to see it), but don't just take the sets on the DP pages without effort.

Well, spend a couple hours laboring over Pokemon and set choices using time, effort, and optionally love to get a set of six Pokemon each using a specific set for a reason, and suddenly you're not very robotic anymore.

 

[Zog]

Yeah, my brother did well at London from using a sort of unusual team (which I designed lol).

He basically got to the top 16 having rudimentary knowledge of type effectiveness and what different pokémon do. The team was TR with Bronzong/Scizor/Parasect/Lickilicky, all with original sets, and while he seemed to have had a ridiculously easy runthrough to round 3 I'd say he did quite well because in part people don't expect trick room Scizor. First round he fought an amazingly bad Northern Irish guy, 4-0ing his unEVed team of UUs (So bad, Scizor with no speed EVs and low speed IV outsped his Ninetales), and then this guy off Serebii named Abbas who I'd fought a lot beforehand. Pretty funny how he thought he had a winning team but was beaten handily by my noob brother in the second round. =P
He lost in the third round to Luigi who was disqualified ridiculously before the top 16.

Otherwise, I do use alternative sets quite often because of the surprise value and how it feels really cheap to just copy something off the analysis. All of my favourite sets that I use were made myself, namely my signature scarf Venomoth, which also happens to be my favourite Pokémon. Though I now know that other people have used scarf Venomoth before (OmegaDonut is one iirc), I did make the set a while back and have used it to great effect as a lead since. The set's modest 252spatt 252spd bug buzz/sludge bomb/HP ground/sleep powder if anyone's interested. Works brilliantly even in OU, and is able to deal with basically any popular lead in some way. Especially unsashed Azelfs and Starmies which are surprisingly common on Wi-Fi. I need to rebreed for a better Venomoth actually- my current one has HP ice and 25 in speed. HP ice's only advantage being that it OHKOs Salamence, and that's about it, since Bug Buzz and Sludge Bomb both 2HKO.

 

[R S E FR LG]

I'm not saying that you should use a bad set because nobody expects you to. I am saying that you should use a good set regardless of whether it is on the analysis or not.

 

[Rook]

See that's the problem; all of the good sets are on the analysis. Very smart people came up with those sets, ones who have tons of experience. Naturally, those sets are on the analysis. There are some good sets not on the analysis, but if those sets really are good, they will probably eventually find a place on it.

 

[mattj]

See that's the problem; all of the good sets are on the analysis.

To say that all the good sets are on the analysis is to say that one has reviewed all possible combinations of all pokemon and moves. I don't think that's been done yet. The sets that are listed are good no doubt, but there are new tricks out there that have not been discovered yet by those on this site. Creativity in pokemon is not dead just yet.

 

[Rook]

Sorry for the last post, I worded it pretty badly. What I meant was that the tried and true sets are on the analysis, and many times changing one move isn't going to change the pokemon a ton. People can still make new movesets and be creative, but most of them aren't excellent sets. All lot of the good sets that serve a different purpose than the sets on the analysis, like beating their counters. The sets on the analysis are better for certain things, like SD Lucario is the best physical sweeper moveset available for him. But if you changed crunch to thunderpunch, you're not changing the moveset, you're just beating Gyrados.

There are new and good movesets, like even maybe the one in Aqua Milotic's sig, but that Milotic is obviously not going to wall anything. Using new and surprising things can have the surprise factor, but sometimes even in the same game your opponent will catch on. Many teams don't even have a lucario counter, even with how popular it is. Using popular movesets are usually better for their purpose. SD Lucario will usually sweep, provided you have a good enough team. CS Lucario will get maybe two surprise kills, and then the opponent will catch on, but it can be fantastic if you need a revenge killer. But there are better revenge killers out there, and many people need lucario as a sweeper.

So no, not all of the sets are on the analysis. But if you truly do make a gamebreaking set, it will probably end up there someday.

Riverside, you can't make gold out of...... whatever Dustox is.

 

[Aquamilotic]

Of course the Milotic of my signature isn't going to wall. It isn't meant to wall. It is meant to cripple/revenge kill/sweep lategame. It has a surprise factor and cripples/revenge kills/sweeps lategame.

 

[R S E FR LG]

Have you ever read this warstory?

Quick Attack saved him from losing. Changing the Analysis Moveset for Scizor let him win the battle. So you don't have to basically copy every single thing for a moveset. Maybe you want to replace a move or redistribute EVs on a Pokemon, it doesn't make it worse than the previous one.

Also, were all the movesets of one Pokemon made all at once? If not, then people had to make their own movesets in order for them to be on the analysis afterwards, instead of just using the one that was there. See what I mean?

 

[mattj]

???

If I read the above posts correctly....

We might all actually be agreeing with one another to some extent?!