Online Competitive Pokemon Battle Showdown Happy Fun Times

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Firewater

got bored, did some matches- granted it's in Random

Dunsparce is amazing

So is Weepingbell.

Dunsparce deceptively did much better than I perceived him doing,

Spoiler: show

the obvious pentuple flinch on Onix aside.

He didn't seem to me to really have performed that greatly, but then I thought back and, yeah, he really did pull his weight a lot more than one Pokémon normally does.

Weepinbell, on the other hand ... yeah, that one was really clearly obvious.

[Firewater]

yeah, Dunsparce was the super flinch, even with serene grace I've never had that many flinches in a row. Then again, I lost a match because I didn't know Mandibuzz and Medicham have a speed tie.

[Talon87]

There are so many Pokémon now that (for better or worse for your average competitive player) it's all but impossible to know who is faster than who unless you make competitive Pokémon something of a professional hobby on par with the e-sports scene. ^^; I mean, seriously: with over 200 fully evolveds, it's no longer the old days of knowing who wins between Starmie and Jolteon or neither knowing nor caring who loses between Snorlax and Slowbro. There are just so, so many competitively viable Pokémon with mid- to mid-hi speed stats that, unless you rote memorize them all, you're left guessing whether your current guy is faster than the other guy or not.

[Princess Ana]

Originally Posted by Talon87

There are so many Pokémon now that (for better or worse for your average competitive player) it's all but impossible to know who is faster than who unless you make competitive Pokémon something of a professional hobby on par with the e-sports scene. ^^; I mean, seriously: with over 200 fully evolveds, it's no longer the old days of knowing who wins between Starmie and Jolteon or neither knowing nor caring who loses between Snorlax and Slowbro. There are just so, so many competitively viable Pokémon with mid- to mid-hi speed stats that, unless you rote memorize them all, you're left guessing whether your current guy is faster than the other guy or not.

Just type in /data [Pokemon] into the main channel. No guessing involved! ^^

Though in randbats you have to guess a lot.

[Talon87]

Doesn't get much closer than this. (Random Battle; can skip to Turn 21 if you like)

Spoiler: show

Ohhhhhhh priority. But man. If Ho-oh had had even 1% more HP ...

Wherein I repay the favor of a bullshit turnaround.

Spoiler: show

I was pretty much winning that fight, and then he pulls Roost | Fusion Bolt | Ice Beam Kyurem-B whereas I was unlucky enough to get no legendaries or, for that matter, any real major clutch sweepers. Ice Beam and Fusion Bolt fine, but man, Roost is such fucking horseshit. I had this one!

... so when he Roosts and renders it impossible for me to win before I'll die in a straight Damage vs. Damage war, I say "Oh what the hell, why not? " and go for 60%acc Hypnosis, praying it'll not only hit but that he'll remain asleep long enough for me to reverse the tides of victory back my way.

And it does hit. And he does stay asleep just long enough for me to win.

Wherein a coward forfeits rather than lose by switch-in.

Spoiler: show

As I said: "lame." Don't be this guy, people. Losing sucks, but if you're gonna lose, lose with grace and honor. If you didn't already forfeit earlier when it became clear that you could not win (in this guy's case, that'd be after Turn 15 when it became apparent that my Mamoswine outsped his Ninetales), then don't forfeit at all. It's very lame to continue the fight all the way right up until the very final turn ... and to then run away rather than let your opponent deal the killing blow. Cowardly and lame.

Argh, I just went from being 20-7 in OU to being 20-11. -_-; Four straight losses, two of them to assholes and one of them due to speedy Chlorophyll when it was 1-1.

[Princess Ana]

>Looks on Serebii
>Sees the new Genesecct gets Shift Gear

Ahhh...ah...ah....ahh......ahhhhh.......why.....

[Talon87]

So that he can be banned to Übers in all channels? Not seeing the problem here -- except, of course, for Übers players.

I was frustrated last night and played two or three more games after my post. All losses. -_-; It's so true what they say: when you find yourself in a losing streak, step away from the game and come back to it later. But anyway, my score isn't too too devastated, and I knew the honeymoon wouldn't last forever anyway. I fell from the 1750s or thereabouts on down to the 1660s: roughly a 100-point drop. But most of that drop happened after the first four losses. For instance, my fifth loss last night (the first that happened after I edited my previous post last) was against someone in the 1900s, so the system deemed it appropriate to only dock me three points. But yeah. Yeah. It's gonna take a hell of a lot of work to get back into the 1700s with this team. Jirachi no longer has adequate time or opportunities to set up screens and even when he does they fall far too soon, returning us back to the reality of Team Squishy being up against Teams Brutal.

Also: I'm running into a lot of teams now that probably fit the billing of "hyper offense": they run 4+ Pokémon who either use Dragon Dance, Calm Mind, or Quiver Dance. And that's not a typo or an exaggeration: when I say "4+", I mean the minimum number of DDers & Co. on the teams I'm running into now is four, with some teams sporting five or even six copies. Very annoying.

Also: three of my losses were to the first three Trick Room teams I've faced on PS. One was close, but two were slaughters and all three were losses. My team is definitely geared towards winning speed wars and hitting before being hit, so Trick Room teams certainly pose me major problems, especially since the teams I faced were all annoyingly super-cautious in that they taught Trick Room not to one, not to two, but to three or four teammates. (I remember one battle involved Trick Room on Bronzong, Porygon 2, Reuniclus, and somebody else.) Like the DDers & Co. teams, this made it very difficult (and, in my case, impossible) to take out all their Trick Roomers and restore the speed war victories to me.

[Rangeet]

Genesect is undoubtedly Uber anyway; and Uber is already unbalanced by Darkrai. That's why I decided not to play it(after going 0-6 down in my attempt to find obscure pokemon that counter Darkrai.)

[Talon87]

Two new battles, two new depressing losses. I keep forgetting to save these ones. Sorry. ^^; Just bummed out by this terribad losing streak. Gone from 20-7-0 to 20-15-0. Terrible. -_-; First one I lost just now was to a guy in the upper 1800s, so okay ... but the second one was to a guy who I helped push up from the 1490s to the 1500s. -.-; Yaay. ~_~

Despite having multiple, multiple ways of dealing with Heatran (Togekiss's Aura Sphere, Staraptor's Close Combat, and Hydreigon's Focus Blast), ToxicStall Heatran seems to be the recent bane of my team's existence. With no way to make Toxic go away and with Heatran able to scout and gain back life thanks to Protect+Leftovers, he's been very problematic. I did finally manage to break through him in this most recent battle ... but at the time the score had just been 4-6 and my opponent must've gotten sick and tired of Protect+Switch. I managed to turn things around a bit and go from 4-5 (with Heatran's fall) to 4-2, not bad if I do say so myself, ... but then his Ballooned Timid Ninetales was curtains for my Mamoswine (who was already out and had the burden of bursting-the-balloon duty via Superpower; not enough for the OHKO ), Togekiss (too much firepower off of that Fire Blast -_-; ), Staraptor (OUTSPED! >_<), and Jirachi (do I really need to explain?).

Adding more Steel would help against the dragon spam teams ... but would make me a sitting duck for the Heatran ones. -.-; Man, what I wouldn't give right about now for someone on the team to have immunity to Poison -and- be able to OHKO or 2HKO a Heatran.

Since the Reflect + Light Screen honeymoon seems to be officially over, I might try converting Jirachi into an offensive type (whether SpAtk @ Thunder and Flash Cannon or Atk @ Body Slam and Iron Head). It might help, I dunno. *shrug*

[DaveTheFishGuy]

>Man, what I wouldn't give right about now for someone on the team to have immunity to Poison -and- be able to OHKO or 2HKO a Heatran

Isn't Toxicroak OU now? Just speaking as a guy who had like eight Toxicroak sets back in Gen IV.

Also defensive Nidoqueen could be useful, since she's also got a handy Fighting resistance for OU, but I don't play and this is just speculation so feel free to completely disregard me.

[Talon87]

To be honest, you rarely see offensive Psychic-type attacks on sets (even on many Psychic-type Pokémon, like Starmie and Jirachi, for starters), so Defensive Poison is at least viable from that angle ... the problem, however, is mighty Earthquakes coming off of mighty McMightersons. Not to mention Earth Power on Heatran himself. ^^; So I dunno, we'll see. Not a fan of Nidoqueen the overall package (design, etc.) anyway. ^^; (Love Nidoking. Never been a fan of Nidoqueen.)

Toxicroak faces the same worries as Nidoqueen (powerful Ground-type attacks) but he's certainly a consideration. A SubPunch set could be very nice, but ... I dunno. Maybe I should give him a try before rejecting him outright.

[Princess Ana]

Toxicroak is not a Heatran counter really.....Dry Skin is a bitch especially since Heatran is commonly found on sand and sun.

Defensive Sheer Force Nidoqueen is actually pretty nice. It also solves your Terrakion problem, though it will still take a lot of damage from the banded versions. Don't use Nidoking though, its a worse Nidoqueen.

[Talon87]

I wasn't planning to use Nidoking. I'm just saying that I like him better than Nidoqueen in general, both with respect to their intended ways of use and with respect to their designs. I'm not saying I find Nidoking to be a better OU team member than Nidoqueen or that he's the better answer to my team's problems than Nidoqueen is. Although frankly, I don't find either to be OU material and I don't think either will earn a lasting spot on my team, putting aside our discussions of how Nidoqueen might have niche OU applications as a combination Heatran+Terrakion counter of sorts.

And I wouldn't run Dry Skin if I did run Toxicroak. I thought that would be obvious, given I was saying I was considering one for the role of Heatran counter, for the very reasons you pointed out. I'd opt for Poison Touch simply because my team doesn't otherwise attempt any status ailments, so rogue poisonings would never be anything but a plus for me. That could change though if i do opt to go for a ParaFlinch Jirachi.

[phoopes]

>Rangeet

Guts Sleep Talk Heracross.

Yes really.

>Talon

Conkeldurr @ Leftovers
Nature: Whatever +Atk -Spe is (Brave?)
Ability: Guts
Item: Leftovers
EV Spread: 120 HP/252 Atk/136 SpD
IVs: 0 Speed IVs
Moves:
-Bulk Up
-Drain Punch
-Mach Punch
-Payback

Best fix-all I could think of for you. Toxic boosts his attack, making him more useful and a good status absorber in general. 2HKOs your normal Heatran pretty easily IIRC and you only take one hit because of Mach Punch. Slow as possible for Trick Room, even of your best way of dealing with those Psychics is Payback. Tough call on what you'd replace but it's something to look into.

[Talon87]

Absolutely loathe Conkledurr, both because of his stupid-ass design and because of all the rage he caused me in early Gen 5. No way. But thanks for trying.

Played one more match with my team as is. Won, breaking my losing streak. Unfortunately, I truly only won (and we both know it) thanks to an Ice Shard critical hit I got off on a twice-QDed Volcarona. Earthquake did like 85% HP damage -- nice but not enough -- but then my Hail Mary Ice Shard went critical and knocked out his sweeper. Mamoswine then proceeded to knock out two more of his Pokémon in just one hit with Ice Shard, taking us from 4-4 and it looking like it'd be my certain loss to it being 4-1 and him being fucked. Earthquaked his final dude (knew I'd win the speed war), Mamoswine fell, and I finished him off with Togekiss. 3-0, but only because of a critical. *sigh*

Wherein Jirachi says "Don't drop me! ;_;" and Toxicroak proves that even with three Bulk Ups he ain't doin' shit.

[Kindrindra]

@Phoopes: He already came up with that. Then he ragequit due to Darkrai being "the very definition of overcentralization".

[Sneaze]

@Talon: Worse yet, that was 4 Bulk Ups, not 3.

[Princess Ana]

Originally Posted by Kindrindra

@Phoopes: He already came up with that. Then he ragequit due to Darkrai being "the very definition of overcentralization".

Wow....Darkrai is really easy to check though. If you can't handle Darkrai's speed, how are you going to handle the Scarf Genesects and Palkia and Kyogre? You ain't unless you are running stall. And I know geet hates stall.

[Kindrindra]

It was less the speed and more the speed combined with Dark Void.

*Shrugs*

[Rangeet]

Originally Posted by blazeVA

Wow....Darkrai is really easy to check though. If you can't handle Darkrai's speed, how are you going to handle the Scarf Genesects and Palkia and Kyogre? You ain't unless you are running stall. And I know geet hates stall.

I was not aware Genesect or Palkia or Kyogre had an 80% accuracy OHKO move that bypasses types.

The only counters to Darkrai are obvious from Team Preview. It's stupidly easy to work around them.

[Princess Ana]

Originally Posted by Rangeetsuper

I was not aware Genesect or Palkia or Kyogre had an 80% accuracy OHKO move that bypasses types.

The only counters to Darkrai are obvious from Team Preview. It's stupidly easy to work around them.

Or just run ST Kyogre and stop bitching, because Kyogre is everywhere. Heracross isn't the only one.

[Rangeet]

Sleep Talk Kyogre is setup bait and Taunt bait. Sleep Talk is unreliable as fuck, and ST Kyogre fits nowhere on anything resembling an offensive team. And Darkrai can switch out. Especially to Palkia against Sleep Talk, and then you're in big trouble, my friend, because you just set up the rain yourself.

[Haymez]

Scarf Kyogre with water spout, or surf for that matter. Darkrai is pretty frail.

Another good option is extremespeed Arceus. With lum berry you can always KO.

[Rangeet]

Originally Posted by Haymez

Scarf Kyogre with water spout, or surf for that matter. Darkrai is pretty frail.

Another good option is extremespeed Arceus. With lum berry you can always KO.

The first one requires using Scarf Kyogre as a lead. I don't have to tell you how terrible that idea is. The second one can be foiled via Focus Sash.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Rangeetsuper

The first one requires using Scarf Kyogre as a lead. I don't have to tell you how terrible that idea is.

So terrible it's ...



... the default recommendation on Smogon?

Good lord, Rangeet, you are just in overdrive today for being so phail-wrong!