Online Competitive Pokemon Battle Showdown Happy Fun Times

[Red Panda]

Great job Phoopes! I can only hope that at some point I'll make it into the top 500

[Talon87]

Hey, congrats!

Right now I'm hovering right below the Top 50. Current Elo score is 1772, with a W:L:T ratio of 42:9:0 and a GXE of 83. That places me at 53rd place on the current leaderboard. I'd like to make Top 20, but we'll see. It's not an easy feat to accomplish, which was all the more reason I was happy for Daisy to see that she had managed it.

Question for your bosses: since the server already groups every one of a person's alts together (as evidenced by the fact that when you ban a user you can ban all of his other alts as well), why not retool the ladder such that it will only report the alt with the currently-highest score? I think this would be a great idea, and if you guys are already implementing it, then cool. But I was just thinking to myself the other day how the "Top 50" is realistically more like the Top 30 because a good chunk of the names you find in the Top 50 are bound to be alts of the same person, e.g. 5th place is also 9th place is also 37th place, just different names. So instead of littering the leaderboard with different alts of the same human being's, why not instead only show the alt of his which currently holds the highest score? That way, instead of the Top 50 being a representation of the top fifty highest scoring alts, it's more likely to be a true representation of the Top 50 individual players on PS?

If you guys designed the leaderboard this way, this would also make it a lot more guilt-free for people who ladder to rotate between alts. I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels a little guilty gettng 2+ of my names into the Top 500 / 200 / 100 / 50 and thereby crowding out other human beings who are trying to make those benchmarks and feel good about themselves. At the same time, though, I don't see why I should continue to push Suisho's limits before getting Juisho or whichever other alt I might make to catch up with him.

[phoopes]

I thought it was a pretty good idea, Talon. I asked about it, but was reminded that we have a bunch of users on public IPs. There are plenty of people who use PS! from school or from a library, so that would screw with the rankings of users who ladder from there.

[Talon87]

I don't see why public IPs matter. If PS is already comfortable blanket banning every single alt attached to a specific IP address when one of those alts misbehaves, as evidenced by all the mutes and bans we see handed out hourly in the lobby, then I don't see why the issue of public IP addresses is being brought up now for the ladder. Like, which of the following would honestly be worse?

1. You only show Steven's name in the Top 500 and not Joe's and Susan's too, even though all three children have accounts which have scored higher than 1700 points, because all three children signed in from the same IP address and Steven is the one with the highest-scoring account.
2. You ban the IP address attached to the Lafayette public library from connecting to the PS servers, thus locking Joe and Susan out of PS even though they've done nothing wrong, because Steven is a problematic hacker who keeps harassing the staff, attempting to hack the site, etc, and he does so from the Lafayette public library.

Both are obviously not ideal, and both are obviously consequences of designing your system around IP addresses, but isn't B clearly worse than A? Which is the bigger problem: your name not showing up because someone else on this IP has laddered higher than you? Or not being able to use the site period because someone else has gotten this IP placed on PS's blacklist?

[Talon87]

The very forests of Lordaeron whispered the name ... "Arthas" ... (Random Battle)

Spoiler: show

If my opponent hadn't had the nickname he had, I'd have been more sympathetic towards him during the course of the match. But his username coupled with his constant complaints about the freezehax worried me that if I did try to reach out to him mid-game he would more than likely respond negatively and sarcastically. So, I withheld any comments until the very end of the game. And as you can see, he was in no mood to stick around to chitchat. ^^;

But yes, this was an interesting match. A lot of freezes for me, several quick thaws for him. My team consisted of:

• Crobat
• Genesect
• Kyurem
• Jumpluff
• Serperior
• Dragalge

As you can see, this team would not have wanted Drapion (STAB Poison) or Braviary (STAB Flying) to stick around. And I didn't know that he had Donphan until the very end of the match, so that's another one, with its unSTABbed Ice Shard, that you can toss onto the pile. So I was grateful for the fact that I was able to dictate so much of the flow of this match via the combination of 1) the windows of opportunity given to me by the freezes and 2) my aggressive playstyle which never let the pressure up off of him.

While my team would not have needed to worry much about Samurott, I am ever so grateful that the samurai otter proved inefficient at taking my Kyurem down. I'm sure he was hoping for Superpower to do a lot more than it in fact did. I'm sure the match would have also been very different had Samurott outsped Kyurem. But even with the level advantage, it did not; and so I was able to force the Samurott out with judicious use of Substitute and continue my icy rampage.

[Red Panda]

Volcaroooooooonaaaaaaa

Spoiler: show

This has been classified as my best team, and it's moments like these where I realize that I shouldn't win all of these matches.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Red Panda

Volcaroooooooonaaaaaaa

Spoiler: show

This has been classified as my best team, and it's moments like these where I realize that I shouldn't win all of these matches.

Response:

Spoiler: show

Yeah, your opponent threw the match away by mistake on Turn 39.

Deoxys-S sure didn't seem to be doing much for your team here. Do you really need him? Do you really need Stealth Rock? I realize he got brutally shut down here and that he isn't always going to be shut down quite so hard, but still. Your team seems to be less about forcing switches (especially given how you love to use Toxic) and more about seizing windows of opportunity to sweep (via Volcarona, Terrakion, and possibly Bisharp). Perhaps you could consider looking into adding a teammate who will better support their opportunities to sweep.

Your team seems to like stalling people out (as seen with Mandibuzz, Florges, and to a limited extent Volcarona). Might it be worth it to remove one of her attacks and to give her Aromatherapy instead? Say you ditch Moonblast. It means that she's dead weight as your final Pokémon if they have any Steel or Poison types remaining, but since Fairy is weak to both of those types anyway and they both resist Fairy-type attacks, that's honestly a moot concern. You could run something like:

• Toxic
• Aromatherapy
• Wish
• fourth move

The reason for Aromatherapy is simple: you remove the enemy's own attempts to win by poisoning you. You also remove any pesky paralysis or burns.

Alternatively, you could run:

• Moonblast
• Aromatherapy
• Wish
• fourth move, one that isn't Toxic

and leave the poison strategy purely to Mandibuzz. I'm not sure if that's what your team would like though, but it's an option if you want to leave an attacking move on there.

Looking things up online, it seems like there's heated debate over whether Aromatherapy sets like the ones recommend above are best done by Florges or best done by Sylveon. I guess that's up to you to decide who you like better.

[Princess Ana]

He's using a Deo-S / Bisharp team, which is pretty popular because Bisharp essentially acts like a psuedo-spin blocker with Defiant. Defog trips Defiant, sweep.

I'm holding comments until I know what kind of set he's running. If he was running Psycho Boost, then yes I am disappointed in you. :P

[Red Panda]

For Deo-S the set is Zen Headbutt/Stealth Rock/Extremespeed/Taunt

It works pretty well, since with Attack fully invested Zen Headbutt can do quite a bit to frailer pokemon. And in the case that they have a prankster mon I immediately switch to Volcarona or Bisharp. I will consider adding another sweeper/helper, though, possibly a water type since Lando-T can give me problems.

For Florges, the set is Moonblast/HP Fire/Wish/Toxic. The Wish passing is really helpful, and obviously toxistall is how I go about removing threats. HP Fire is nice to catch Genesect/Scizor/Ferro on the switch, or other steel types for that matter, though if I can corner them Volcarona does a much better job. Moonblast is helpful because it lowers Sp. Atk, and Florges is a special wall. I've considered Aromatherapy a lot, since a burn on any of my pokemon, other than Volcarona and Florges, is really tedious to deal with since they're all physical.

[Talon87]

Sigilyph continues its reign of terror. (Random Battle; 19 turns)

Spoiler: show

This Sigilyph is a huge downgrade from the regular one. Its moveset is Roost, Cosmic Power, Stored Power, and Psycho Shift -- the same as the usual Random Battle Sigilyph -- but its hold item is Focus Sash. What a joke. So they put that there to keep it from dying from critical hits (which is lame in and of itself) but utterly fucked it out of its awesome ability to stall almost the entire game to death through burn damage (from Psycho Shift) + Roost. Now instead, Sigilyph finds itself completely walled by Dark types.

Indeed, I don't even really see the point in Psycho Shift being on a set without Flame Orb: as you saw here, I didn't even attempt to shift my Toxic status onto Cinccino because I didn't need to and it wasn't worth any risks. I already knew he had nothing immune to Psychic (since, had he, he should have switched it in ages ago), but I had no guarantees about not having things immune to being poisoned or not. So with only two Pokémon of his remaining, why would I risk a turn Psycho Shifting my toxic status away when I could just go for the OHKO on whatever he has out?

Despite the downgrade, you can also see that Sigilyph continues to be an absolute terror in Random Battles. My opponent's only hope for salvation was to fight fire with fire: Calm Mind Arceus. I won't lie: this gave me a fright. I wasn't shitting my pants terrified (which is why I said "Bring it!" and refused to switch out) because I had several physical Pokémon who I knew would win a speed war in Random Battle and would hit very hard. (Dodrio, for example.) But I was still concerned that with Recover's generous PP (fucking 16, man -_-; ) he'd be able to outdo Sigilyph, get all the way up to 4x SpAtk and 4x SpDef, and then sweep my team with Judgment. But as you saw, all it took was one fortunate critical hit and his hopes for victory were completely crushed. I had been at 2.5x Def and SpDef before he forced my hand; after he forced me to bulk up because of his Arceus, I was at 4x for both. Short of getting a lucky critical hit of his own, he was doomed.

6-0. A bloodbath. This is what Sigilyph does in Random Battles when used right.

[Jerichi]

Sigilyph is a wildly underappreciated Pokémon, probably because Xatu is much better known and a more generally effective defensive pivot. I like that the popularization of Cosmic/Stored Power Clefable is bringing Sigilyph to light, though, because I think it's a really fun alternative.

[Princess Ana]

Sigilyph is really quite good, though I prefer Calm Mind variants better than the SP/CP variants. Xatu is really, really under appreciated especially on Sun teams.

And its interesting how Xatu is better than Espeon in Ubers. Quite interesting.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Jerichi

I like that the popularization of Cosmic/Stored Power Clefable is bringing Sigilyph to light, though, because I think it's a really fun alternative.

I don't think it has anything to do with Clefable. Sigilyph's been a recognized terror of Random Battles and has run this moveset for at least the past year. By May of 2013, I was already so well-acquainted with the guy on Showdown's Random Battle circuit that I knew exactly how to turn his own playtoys against him when he fell into the hands of my enemies. Unfortunately, I wasn't regularly playing on Showdown (as opposed to Pokémon-Online) until around this time period, so I don't see any posts of mine before May indicating my own familiarity with the set. But I'm pretty confident that whoever thought of this set for Smogon must have thought of it long before May 2013.

It's a shame we can't see the edit history of Sigilyph's BW article on Smogon, but as you can see right there:

~ Cosmic Power
~ Roost
~ Psycho Shift
~ Stored Power
252 HP / 16 Def / 240 Spe

This set is what Sigilyph is most known for.

I think that's a fair claim: people either never see Sigilyph (because he just isn't that good in the most popular tier, OU) or else they see him in Random Battles and never, ever forget what he's like there. The same article claims that an earlier, more offensive build is quote "by far Sigilyph's best set," but I think that's only true for the tier Sigilyph calls home (RU). If you're playing in Random Battles, you want the Cosmic Power / Psycho Shift / Roost / Stored Power @ Flame Orb Sigilyph.

Now, it's entirely possible that Clefable ran a Cosmic Power / Stored Power set in BW1 and that this is where the idea came from for Sigilyph to run the same set ... but without poring over Smogon's forums (bleh ) or an edit history on their articles (sigh), it's impossible to tell. (Mind, I don't see such a set for Clefable in his BW Smogon article.) But if you're implying that Clefable's popularity in Gen 6 is what has given rise to Sigilyph's moveset, then you're mistaken.

EDIT: I decided to look anyway. Found this thread from 2011. It appears to be the Sigilyph analysis thread back when BW1 first came out in North America. By October 2011, with the games having already been out in Japan for the past year and many players already toying around with them on online battle simulators, the most knowledgeable fans appear to have been well aware that Cosmic Power / Stored Power / Roost / Psycho Shift @ Flame Orb was a good set for the guy.

[Princess Ana]

My New OU team's Virgin Run

I have literally no idea what I am doing with this team. It's just a bunch of Pokemon I either love(Heatran and Venusaur) or Pokemon I've heard great things about(Bisharp, Conk) and then filler(Kingdra and Scarf Excadrill). No idea what I'm doing.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by blazeVA

My New OU team's Virgin Run

I have literally no idea what I am doing with this team. It's just a bunch of Pokemon I either love(Heatran and Venusaur) or Pokemon I've heard great things about(Bisharp, Conk) and then filler(Kingdra and Scarf Excadrill). No idea what I'm doing.

Aw man. D: I was enjoying it until Turns 7 and 8. Turns 7 and 8 were total bullshit. I mean, I wasn't there for the match, so I don't know to what extent you were psyching him out, but at least in the replay, those two turns seem like such huge, huge misplays. They're like he was pretty much throwing the match. Why would he stay put on Mega Venusaur when he can expect Giga Drain and has Sigilyph? Why would he Close Combat when Mega Venusaur has zero reason to fear Terrakion at this point? You were at 66% HP thanks to devouring Gastrodon. Earlier in the match he'd successfully hit you with his best anti-Venusaur attack and only done ~40%HP damage. He should have known you had no reason to flee. Known you would use Giga Drain. UGH. D: Thinking you would switch out there to Bisharp and trying to be one clever step ahead of you ... just ... UGHHHHHH! >_<

I had been enjoying it up until then! ^^;

[Talon87]

A true Wild West showdown between Arceus-Flying and Aromatisse. (Random Battle; 47 turns, showdown begins on Turn 19)

Spoiler: show

Once you get into one of these situations, it's kill or be killed. Either I was going to get the critical or he was going to. He also had a shot at inducing paralysis coupled with me being paralyzed for a turn; inducing the status wasn't enough, he needed me to stay paralyzed for one turn too on most (though not all) of those turns.

For those reading the comments but too impatient to watch the showdown, it ends on Turn 41, with the battle ending a mere six turns later on Turn 47.

[Fallen Icarus]

OMG I thought I was going to lose this

Spoiler: show

Big Mistakes on Turn 1 and 14 almost cost me the match (I spent some time debating over them too D: ), but fortunately a few mistakes from my opponent in the end-game and a bit of luck on my part saved Team Icarus! That's one win closer to the ELO requirements so I can vote to ban Mega-Luke ;p

As for the team, it's probably the best I've built this gen. The Synergy...is just too good ;p I do wish that Thundurus was a bit faster so I could KO Garchomp, so I'm debating whether to replace it with Thundurus-I. q

[phoopes]

It appears my luck has run out. I made it up to a ranking of 1731 on the RandBats ladder, peaking at #137 or something like that. I dunno, it was definitely in the top 150. Anyway, since then I've lost seven in a row for various reasons, being team matchup, luck, or simply being outplayed by my opponent and I've dropped to 1601. Such is life!

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by phoopes

It appears my luck has run out. I made it up to a ranking of 1731 on the RandBats ladder, peaking at #137 or something like that. I dunno, it was definitely in the top 150. Anyway, since then I've lost seven in a row for various reasons, being team matchup, luck, or simply being outplayed by my opponent and I've dropped to 1601. Such is life!

Don't despair! Juisho's stuck in the 1550s right now, having got off to a peculiarly rough start. Current score is 44 W 22 L 0 T, which is not bad, and I'm hoping to be able to pull it up from there. It's below your current score of 1601 though, never mind your higher score which you had had previously. So just keep that in mind: I'm not giving up on Juisho just yet, and so I think it may be too early for you to be throwing in the towel on phoopes too.

One thing you can do is make a single alt (not a whole bunch, just one) and bounce between that and phoopes whenever you feel that you're starting to press your luck on the account that's currently in the lead. For example, say phoopes is at 1601 right now. Well then: you sign into a different account and do Random Battles there until you get that account to 1602 or higher. Once you've done that, you can resume playing with phoopes. If phoopes dips down (say to 1500 or worse), you can just stay put on it since it's your main account anyway. And if instead phoopes gets to (say) 1750 or higher? Then you can put phoopes on hold once again, bust out the 1602+ account, and try to get it up to 1751.

Even if you don't want to make a new alt, I'd say you're probably fine. The new scoring system does not seem to be as punitive as the old one was when it comes to the total number of games played. The old one was kind of mean in that, the more games you played, the less generously it awarded you for wins and the severer its penalties were for losses. You could have one freak loss due to horrible RNGed teams and lose 50 points in one go, and then you could win four matches in a row through skill and perseverance and only gain back a total of 16 points, roughly +4 per game. It was very strict. ^^; And was the #1 reason that people who took laddering seriously would abandon an account the moment it suffered a loss -- any loss -- before they had reached their goal. With the new system, it seems to be the case that you win or lose roughly 20 points no matter how many games you've played. When you're just starting, the winnings can be a bit larger (in the +40 to +50 range), but once you've gotten twenty or so games under your belt, I don't see a significant difference between the awards and penalties there versus the awards and penalties once you've completed several hundred games.

Don't despair and best of luck!

EDIT: I just had a battle here against someone whose score (going into it) was Elo 1581 and 75 W : 50 L : 0 T. My score coming out of it was Elo 1582 and 48 W : 24 L : 0 T. My Elo was only one point higher than his despite the fact that I have a solid 2:1 win-to-loss ratio whereas his was a solid 1½:1. It just goes to show you that you shouldn't throw in the towel just because your Elo dips down. Sometimes the Elo score is very strange and will be very high on people who have atrocious W:L ratios (like 1.125 to 1) and other times it'll be very low on people who have knockout scores (like twelve straight wins and zero losses). I think Elo is less elastic than the old scoring system was. The old one would bounce you pretty high once it predicted that you were a highly-skilled player. Consequently, losses would send you hurtling back down. It was like a bungee cord experience. Elo, on the other hand, feels more like hiking a mountain. It's slow, steady going, but the general direction in any given minute is upwards: most slip-ups result in a few lost inches, not feet, certainly not miles.

[rotomotorz]

I can never get past 1500 because people keep using haxy Pokémon with weird moves that end up KO most of my Pokemon

[Talon87]

So, I signed on for the first time today, go into my first match, seven or so turns pass before I notice ...

DaisyInary vs. Talon87 (Random Battle)

Spoiler: show

I made a few unlucky calls. 100% did not see that first Will-o-Wisp (the first one from Arcanine) coming. 80% didn't see the second one (the first one from Trevenant) coming. Daisy battled beautifully, as she always does ;D , and before long she had achieved victory.

So, following that defeat, what did I do next? By George, I needed to get two victories in a row to maintain a nice 2:1 win-loss ratio! And so that's exactly what I set about doing.

My second match of the day (Random Battle; 27 turns)

Spoiler: show

This guy forfeited manually (by entering the command and not by closing out of the window), and then he proceeded to linger around the room for over ten minutes. Eventually I got tired of waiting for him to say something snide so I figured I'd go ahead and leave and check back in later.

Why did I expect a snide remark? Well ... coupled with his purposeful decision to stay behind was the fact that this was a rather one-sided match and it was to a modest but significant degree outside his control. I was lucky enough to get four legendaries; and while legendaries aren't always a blessing in Random Battles due to the leveling shenanigans, the legendaries I was lucky enough to get tended to have high levels, high enough that their nice base speeds were not impeded. Legendaries like Moltres and Tornadus-T, who not only boast good stats amongst Random Battle legendaries but also come equipped with U-Turn and Hurricane. I also got a Giratina (defense form though with two attacking moves, Rest, and Roar, so blegh ) and a Zekrom (slow and predictable but packs a wallop). Meanwhile, my opponent didn't get one single legendary. So ... yeah, I could see why he might have been moody about this game. *shrug*

I dunno. Maybe it was just in my imagination. I mean, he didn't end up saying anything afterwards (at least not so far as I can tell) nor was he impolite during the game. Never time stalled, never smacktalked ... a nice opponent. So who knows. ^^;

My third match of the day (Random Battle; 18 turns)

Spoiler: show

This was a good one that led off to a pretty humorous (for me! ^^; ) start. We both led with Swoobats, but while his was Simple with Calm Mind, mine was Unaware. So he wastes no time getting Calm Mind boosts up, both to shield himself from my attacks and to make his own hit that much harder ... only for me to just Air Slash him for the effortless 3HKO due to Unaware.

On Turn 4, he makes the fatal error of tricking a Choice Band onto my switched-in Emboar. He'd certainly regret that! ^^;

Sceptile was very nice thanks to his high Random Battle level (83) coupled with a phenomenal base speed (120). I was able to cripple my opponent's Archeops and revenge kill his Mega Gengar because of this.

I can see why he felt he need to activate Mega Gengar ASAP -- Shift Gear Klinklang is no joke! -- but I think he ultimately made the wrong call. Furthermore, if he had known that I was faster, he would have surely switched out to his mono-Bug: even though he may not have known that I was about to use Earthquake, he should have at least anticipated a Leaf Storm (as it would've done enough damage to KO the Mega Gengar hanging in there at less than one-fifth HP remaining) and eaten it with his Kricketune. But he didn't ... and so I was able to remove that annoying Shadow Tagger with relative ease, at "only" the cost of my Klinklang.

By Turn 13, the match was effectively over.

Current Random Battle scores for Juisho: Elo 1686, GXE 75, Glicko 1710 ± 38, W 56 L 27 T 0
Current Random Battle scores for Suisho: Elo 1772, GXE 83, Glicko 1805 ± 51, W 42 L 9 T 0

I'm not dissatisfied with Juisho's W:L ratio, but boy if I don't wish it were as awesome as Suisho's. ^^; Still though: I'm happy that Juisho's W:L ratio remains at or above 2:1. I know it won't last forever, but I'm enjoying it while it does.

EDIT: Juisho's scores currently: Elo 1743, GXE 76, Glicko 1720 ± 37, W 59 L 27 T 0

[Fallen Icarus]

Finally 1700 after many days of toil and anguish. The game that won me this rating was slightly haxy, but that happens ;p

Win/Loss: 63/28

[Talon87]

I thought you were talking about Random Battles until I watched the video. Hey! OU! Nice! That's impressive that you managed to get a score in the 1700s. Very nice W:L ratio!

[Fallen Icarus]

Thanks Talon!

[rotomotorz]

Dammit why u no get haxxed and trolled by random Pokémon in the 1200s