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Resource Useful LC stuff / Introductions / Simple Questions Simple Answers
- Thread starter macle
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People definitely would be interested. I used to host LC theorymon threads, and they were pretty active.
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I'm not totally sure what you mean by defense BP, as that could be Curse or SD pass. I'll just give you some options
For SD: Pawniard, Drilbur, Corphish, Shellder (+4 breaks through pretty much everything besides Pawniard and healthy Mag), Pancham
For Curse: Spritzee, Timburr, Fletchling
Tirtouga is a notable mention for either, though I really can't remember where I had the most success with it. Also helpful for luring in Abra for a second sweeper in that matchup.
There is room for more things, as Snivy, Croagunk, and even Mienfoo will like extra speed though they don't really need or want any other boosts. When building around Torchic, I find it's best to have 3 things that it can pass into i.e. Spritzee, Pawniard, and Pancham since certain pokemon will have matchup over one BP recipient--e.g. Timburr and Croagunk makes Pawn need a lot of support while Skrelp shuts down Spritzee.
For SD: Pawniard, Drilbur, Corphish, Shellder (+4 breaks through pretty much everything besides Pawniard and healthy Mag), Pancham
For Curse: Spritzee, Timburr, Fletchling
Tirtouga is a notable mention for either, though I really can't remember where I had the most success with it. Also helpful for luring in Abra for a second sweeper in that matchup.
There is room for more things, as Snivy, Croagunk, and even Mienfoo will like extra speed though they don't really need or want any other boosts. When building around Torchic, I find it's best to have 3 things that it can pass into i.e. Spritzee, Pawniard, and Pancham since certain pokemon will have matchup over one BP recipient--e.g. Timburr and Croagunk makes Pawn need a lot of support while Skrelp shuts down Spritzee.
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Is there a viability list for BW LC available somewhere? If not then how do I go about learning what I can and cannot use in that tier?
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/little-cup-viability-rankings-mark-ii.3485860/
Here ya go. though it's a bit outdated. the fact that Scraggy is broken, and Murkrow was retroactively banned are the major differences between this and the actual metagame
So all multi-hit moves are done by calculating base power of the move and then doing the roll for each hit, which is why every hit can do different damage or crit independently. Because most multi-hit moves have low base power, the way the formula works usually ends up with a series of 15 "low damage" rolls and 1 "high" roll. The reason for this is that the random factor (a multiplier of .85 to 1.0 which is what causes the 16 possible damage rolls) is applied before other multipliers when calculating. Since everything rounds down basically immediately, any max damage less than 7 will result in only two possible damage results - the high roll and 15 ones that are one damage less. This is because while 6*.99=5.94 and 6*.85=5.1, both of which round down to 5, 7*.99=6.93 and 7*.85=5.95, which rounds to 6 and 5 respectively. This effect is the origin of LC's low and high rolls, and the variance between rolls only increases as base damage goes up, until at 100 damage all 16 rolls have a different value.
Beyond this, since most multi-hit moves in LC, Bullet Seed included, have such low base power they rarely are able to achieve that 7 damage per hit on a neutral target they generally have only two rolls, the 15 low ones and the 1 high. This can change if you boost your attack high/lower your opponent's defense enough, but in most cases that's what happens, you'll have two damage rolls and one of them will usually be 1 more damage than the other.
This changes, of course, when SE or NVE multipliers are taken into effect. For example, here's Pumpkaboo-Super's Bullet Seed on standard Mienfoo.
0 Atk Pumpkaboo-Super Bullet Seed (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 196 Def Eviolite Mienfoo: 9-12 (42.8 - 57.1%) -- approx. 12.1% chance to 2HKO
(3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4)
Here's Bullet Seed on that same Mienfoo, only modified to be Water-type.
0 Atk Pumpkaboo-Super Bullet Seed (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 196 Def Eviolite WaterFoo: 18-24 (85.7 - 114.2%) -- approx. 6.3% chance to OHKO
(6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 8)
You can see how the rolls are actually just multiplied by 2, so now the high roll is 2 more than the normal roll. Here's what happens on a NVE hit, aka GrassFoo.
0 Atk Pumpkaboo-Super Bullet Seed (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 196 Def Eviolite GrassFoo: 3-6 (14.2 - 28.5%) -- approx. 0.1% chance to 4HKO
(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2)
Again, this makes sense - the rolls on the normal Mienfoo are divided by 2 and rounded down - the '1.5's from the 3s become 1s. Now let's see what happens with Grass/Steel Mienfoo for a quad resisted attack.
0 Atk Pumpkaboo-Super Bullet Seed (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 196 Def Eviolite FerroFoo: 3-3 (14.2 - 14.2%) -- guaranteed 7HKO
(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1)
Since the game really hates giving out 0 damage rolls without Reflect (afaik it's flat out impossible without a screen) everything ends up rounding down to 1, resulting in no effective damage variance.
In general, multi-hit moves are stronger than non-multi hit moves. Unless the user is particularly weak, the target is very bulky, or you're using the attack on a resisting target you'll often get 2-3 damage rolls, meaning a minimum of 4 damage and a maximum of 15, not even taking into account the additional critical hit chances, and of course the move can be 3-4 or 4-5 instead.
Hopefully that answers your question enough, let me know if there was something in particular that I missed that you were confused about!
Multi-Hit moves are generally odd in LC. Awhile back a user made this thread: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/lc-rolls-explained.3508889/ which explains a hell of a lot about it, though specifically multihit moves in tandem with Skill Link is looked into.
From the thread:
There are other quirks that add to its weirdness, such as there almost if not always being a 1/16 roll for more damage which Bullet Seed gets a chance at each time it hits.
From the thread:
This last "round" is what makes Bullet Seed more often better than Seed Bomb on say Ferroseed. It can, and most often will, round up. And because each Bullet Seed hit was calced independently, it's a tad more noticeable. This makes 2 hits usually at least as good as Seed Bomb, and the chance of up to 5 hits far better. I do believe with attack stats 14 and less, Bullet Seed is 100% better due to the close enough base power in tandem with rounding. At 15 attack attack it drops off where Bullet Seed [2 hits] will do 1 damage less than Seed Bomb. This means that on Ferroseed and Pumpkaboo, it's of course the better move but with say SD Snover or Treecko it becomes a bit less concrete--for Snover either is fine though Seed Bomb is generally better though, and Treecko runs Jolly ie 14 attack half the time making Bullet Seed better.
There are other quirks that add to its weirdness, such as there almost if not always being a 1/16 roll for more damage which Bullet Seed gets a chance at each time it hits.
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Well your set sounds likes a toxic based set but Nidoran in my opinion is better offensive than a hazard/status-based Pokemon since there are other Pokemon that fit that role much better. Here is an Offense Nidoran-M set if you're interested but you should check the viability rankings, roles and sample teams is my advice for beginners. With that you will have a better time team-building and playing STU
Thanks for the advice, it's probably clear that I'm new to competitive play, but I wanted to start somewhere. Is little cup a good place to start, or should I start somewhere else? I just want to ease into competitive play when sun and Moon rolls around
STU if you are completely new to competitive pokemon as a whole you should check out this article. it will help a lot for getting into competitive mons amd it should help you understand the op a bit more when it explains the differences with lc and other tiers. you can also type in /intro in the chat box of pokemon showdown for a complete intro to tiers and clauses and stuff. you might also want to check out the little cup room on showdown since they can help you in real time. also, concerning your thread earlier there is a glitch in the third generation of games (adv, or ruby sapphire emerald) known as the pomeg glitch that also lets you obtain level up moves on lc pokemon. there is no perfect tier to start in, and relatively lc can be a tiny bit confusing with how the ev mechanics and other level 5 things work but it isnt too difficult to understand once you get the concept (again there are a ton of helpful links in the op)! i hope this helped and welcome to smogon!
Thanks, i'd like to do at least a little competitive battles before sun and moon come out.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't you just use super training for an lc pokemon? I'm not entirely sure because I don't really know exactly how EVs and IVs work...
for an explanation of evs and ivs you might wabt to check out the introduction to competitive pokemon article.
also a lot of lc battles are played on the pokemon showdown simulator instead of in game so you probably wont need to train the in game (it takes a while iv training mons and its a lot easier just using the sim). if you want to get some in game iv trained lc pokemon you might want to check out wifi (but make sure to read the rules first) im also pretty sure there is an lcer around this subforum that mainly deals with in game lc pokemon but atm i dont remember his username
STU So to clarify on what SubMindRaikou was saying about the pomeg glitch, it's only used for genderless LC pokemon in order to get level up moves on them. For most pokemon you can breed down level up moves simply by having both parents know the move(s) you want passed down. For example, if you wanted Larvesta to be hatched with the move Flare Blitz (therefore having it by level 5) you would breed a female Larvesta/Volcarona that knew Flare Blitz and a father that also knew Flare Blitz. This works fine in most cases for getting in-game pokemon.
For male-only or genderless pokemon, this doesn't work. They require a Ditto as a parent, and Ditto of course doesn't get any moves you'd want to breed down. Because of this male-only or genderless pokemon like Rufflet or Klink cannot get level up moves by breeding. However the Pomeg Glitch provides a workaround for Gen 1-3 pokemon. Since it lets you hatch level up moves, pokemon like Staryu and Porygon can be at level 5 with level up moves. However they cannot have Hidden Abilities or any level up moves introduced in gen 4 or later, due to the glitch only existing in gen 3. This also means pokemon from gen 4 on who are genderless or male-only are screwed for level up moves.
A notable exception to this is Nidoran-M, since breeding a Nidoqueen has a 50% chance of resulting in a Nidoran-M or a Nidoran-F.
As for Super Training, yes it's perfectly fine to use it in Gen 6, but make sure to keep track of what EVs you've given them, since maxing out a stat in Super Training (252 EVs) is rarely optimal.
Hope that helped clear things up about ingame LC pokemon!
For male-only or genderless pokemon, this doesn't work. They require a Ditto as a parent, and Ditto of course doesn't get any moves you'd want to breed down. Because of this male-only or genderless pokemon like Rufflet or Klink cannot get level up moves by breeding. However the Pomeg Glitch provides a workaround for Gen 1-3 pokemon. Since it lets you hatch level up moves, pokemon like Staryu and Porygon can be at level 5 with level up moves. However they cannot have Hidden Abilities or any level up moves introduced in gen 4 or later, due to the glitch only existing in gen 3. This also means pokemon from gen 4 on who are genderless or male-only are screwed for level up moves.
A notable exception to this is Nidoran-M, since breeding a Nidoqueen has a 50% chance of resulting in a Nidoran-M or a Nidoran-F.
As for Super Training, yes it's perfectly fine to use it in Gen 6, but make sure to keep track of what EVs you've given them, since maxing out a stat in Super Training (252 EVs) is rarely optimal.
Hope that helped clear things up about ingame LC pokemon!
Hi, I don't think I've ever introduced myself here before. My name is OP and I've posted Pokemon related things 1000 times. I'm really glad that I recently decided to come back to Pokemon - I've been having a blast the last couple of days. I've never been a part of a community anything like Little Cup's before. Everyone has been absolutely awesome and I've had very few negative experiences in my entire career of playing. I don't think I'll do the cliche shoutouts that most people seem to do, but I want to just say thank you to everyone. Thank you for the ridiculous amount of hours of entertainment and good times. For the friendships I've made and the people I've gotten to meet. For never letting me become bored and always being there when I want to procrastinate. For letting me just be myself. And for making me laugh every single day.
I love all of you and I hope to keep playing Pokemon with you guys for a long time.
p.s. sorry for posting this in a weird place, I have no teams to RMT and I only ever seem to post in the boring c&c area
I love all of you and I hope to keep playing Pokemon with you guys for a long time.
p.s. sorry for posting this in a weird place, I have no teams to RMT and I only ever seem to post in the boring c&c area
Through the Pomeg Glitch, meaning that all Staryu with those moves must be from Gen 3.
This details the Pomeg Glitch pretty well.
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pomeg_glitch
For this reason Staryu and any of those moves + Analytic is unobtainable. A similar situation exists with Porygon.
