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Old 10-07-2014, 03:54 PM   #3426
Talon87
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Wherein the game makes me reconsider my faithfulness to it. (VGC 2014, 6 turns)

Spoiler: show
That final turn. Seriously. A, it's bad enough that the combination of a 1.5x Shadow Sneak and a Heat Wave are not enough to deal 25% HP damage to a Tyranitar. But B, that fucking Heat Wave miss on Aegislash. Come on. It's like, "In order for me to lose, both of you must happen." And then both things happen.

*sigh* ... I enjoy the excitement of Pokémon as much as the next guy, and most of the time that excitement is born of uncertainty. But c'mon, man. This is stupid. I should not lose the match because the game just decides on a whim that it hates me and wants the other guy to win instead. I did nothing wrong.
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Old 10-07-2014, 06:14 PM   #3427
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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Wherein I get decimated. (VGC 2014, 6 turns)

Spoiler: show
I've lost to plenty of people over the past half year I've been playing in the format. But battles like this one are pretty rare. This. guy. just. pwned me. >_<

Turn 1 goes off without a hitch for my side ... except for the part where his Talonflame uses a Turn 1 Protect that I simply did not see coming. I knew that he likely wouldn't Mega Evolve immediately, so I knew better than to use Thunderbolt. In fact, I expected him to bring in Politoed one way or another, making Hydro Pump the ideal choice. And it was! I just ... targeted a creature who ended up Protecting that turn.

At the top of Turn 2, I am feeling decently good. I know that many Politoed run Rain Dance just to catch enemy weather users off guard, but I decide to take the risk anyway and have Charizard immediately mega evolve to rid us of rain. And I decide to be even bolder and go for Solarbeam on the Politoed. Meanwhile, I assign Rotom-W to Hydro Pump duties again. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? He calls Talonflame back for Amoongus?

But Turn 2 starts and holy fucking shit:
  • He manually switches out Politoed for Manectric.
  • Talonflame uses U-Turn of all things. WHAT. I am caught completely off guard by this.
  • He brings back Politoed, re-establishing rain's presence.
  • I hit a Politoed for pitiful damage.
  • And I lock myself in to Solarbeam. Fuck.
I really should have forfeited right then and there. But I wanted to see how far I could take this. And so I pressed on!

Turn 3, I figure that he will likely call Politoed back for Talonflame; have Politoed Protect; or else have Politoed take the brunt of my Solarbeam attack but still fire back with a Water-type move. I decide the smartest play is to aim towards Manectric instead. My opponent totally calls this. And he has his Manectric use Protect. Worse still? I ordered Rotom-W to target the same slot, knowing that a non-STAB Solarbeam wouldn't likely OHKO Manectric. So I do zero damage this turn. And my opponent gets a free kill against Charizard. The score is now 3-4, but it may as well be 0-4 the way my opponent is toying with me.

Turn 4, I target Manectric's slot with Salamence. I figure he will either stay put (in which case I want to kill Manectric ASAP) or else he will switch out to Talonflame or whoever his fourth Pokémon is. Meanwhile I have Rotom-Wash go after Manectric too. Well, Salamence is able to hit Mega Manectric first. Score! But he only does 40% HP damage since he's been Intimidated by the newly-evolved Mega Manectric. :\ Meanwhile, my opponent has manually called back Politoed ... for Kingdra. I instantly regret that I did not target the Politoed slot. It's like my opponent is reading my every move given that he chose to switch in Kingdra like that despite the 50/50 risk of getting clobbered by my Salamence. Anyway, Manectric uses Volt Switch ... and right back out comes Politoed. Rotom-Wash hits it for pitiful damage ... and activates an Eject Button. Right back out comes Mega Manectric, and Salamence finds himself reduced to 50% of his original Attack stat. This is not good.

Turn 5 is sheer desperation. I expect a Dragon-type attack from Kingdra and switch out Salamence for Talonflame. Talonflame's no good to me against this team and I absolutely cannot have Salamence operating at half Attack. Too bad for me: Kingdra goes for Muddy Water instead. GET OUT OF MY HEAD, CHARLES! I lose everybody on the field and am reduced to just Salamence. It's as good as gg right then and there.

Final turn, Turn 6, I pitifully order a Dragon Claw and direct it towards Kingdra. It hits! OHKO! But not before Kingdra hits me with a Muddy Water ... and does 65.3% HP damage. O-o; I realize he has STAB and the rain is up, but still. I'm a dragon. What's going on here? Mega Manectric uses HP Ice for the easy win, 0-3, my loss.

My opponent turned out to be someone ranked in the 1500s, a score range I've yet to reach even for one minute. So I feel a little less bad about losing to him as I did. Still though. Still though. This was pretty awful.
Spoiler: show

Interestingly enough I fought that person (or at least that team) a few times before. Most of the games end up in close wins or close losses, but from what I saw he read you like a book. Your fundamental flaw was leading with Chaizard and not immediately switching when Politoed came out turn one. If you had done that, his Politoed would've been forced back too, giving you at least a decent chance of getting the weather up nicely, although having it out back would cause you opponent to fear it already. You kept trying the generic all offense strategy with the assumption you could keep your weather up, evident by your Thunderbolt attempt on Talonflame knowing he had Manectric in the back. If you had attempted to Hydro Pump or burn the incoming Manectric, you would've had a much nicer position, but without Charizard your entire counter strategy fell apart. You then went on to constantly double target big threats, making it very easy to see through you and predict your every move. The best way to deal with this kind of switching heavy team is to prevent the main sweeper(Kingdra) and secondary or other main(MMane) from getting on the field without penalty, and speed (and if possible, weather) control are crucial to both of you. You also want to start calling generic counter plays such as protecting or switching, and make sure to capitalize the the rounds where your opponent doesn't do much damage because he opted to switch or Protect one Pokemon.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Wherein the game makes me reconsider my faithfulness to it. (VGC 2014, 6 turns)

Spoiler: show
That final turn. Seriously. A, it's bad enough that the combination of a 1.5x Shadow Sneak and a Heat Wave are not enough to deal 25% HP damage to a Tyranitar. But B, that fucking Heat Wave miss on Aegislash. Come on. It's like, "In order for me to lose, both of you must happen." And then both things happen.

*sigh* ... I enjoy the excitement of Pokémon as much as the next guy, and most of the time that excitement is born of uncertainty. But c'mon, man. This is stupid. I should not lose the match because the game just decides on a whim that it hates me and wants the other guy to win instead. I did nothing wrong.
Spoiler: show
Tyranitar is extremely bulky and you got cocky, thinking you could get rid of it when you cannot, leaving the game up to chance when you could've avoided it entirely. You kept on trying to attack the weakened Pokkemon and not the open Pokemon, which ultimately led to your folly. For instance, had Talonflame gone for Aegislash it would've KOed, and Shadow Sneak would do tons of damage to MMawile while also negating Sucker Punch(assuming it went first, which it should), which meant that while he wanted your Aegislash dead you could abuse that and get a slower but more rewarding KO later. If you had played defensively with Charizard and protected, you would've had a chance to KO T-tar with Iron Head is your Aegislash outsped his, but instead you totally overestimated your strengths and it backfired horribly. If you hadn't left the game up to chance you wouldn't have faced the loss you had
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Last edited by rotomotorz; 10-07-2014 at 06:23 PM.
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Old 10-07-2014, 08:49 PM   #3428
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You're taking an awfully superior tone for someone whose Elo is less than mine, GXE only three points higher than mine, and Glicko only twenty points higher. Much of your assessment is incorrect. Much of your advice is, frankly, invalid nine times out of ten and only valid here with the expertness of hindsight. I welcome constructive feedback, but your entire post reads as one enormous, "You played poorly. I don't play poorly. Let me tell you what you should have done. And let's have you thank me for my advice" self-aggrandizing post. Maybe it would fly coming from a 1550. But not from a 1324.
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Old 10-07-2014, 09:30 PM   #3429
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Well no I never said I don't play poorly because frankly I play very bad at times. Also realize that I don't have much time to play anymore and with VGC season 15 coming up I'm reluctant to continue playing in VGC 14, not to mention that after a while I stopped playing on Showdown and started playing VGC matches in-game, so my account has probably suffered ladder decay like crazy. I speak not from ELO but from experience which is something Showdown ELOs can't always describe. And blaming the end result of a game based on a hax chance that could've been avoided is not saying I play good but that you really cannot blame hax all the time when it happens and you should take a second look over your battle to see what you did wrong instead of "reconsidering your faithfulness". This is constructive criticism and analysis of your battles, not me claiming superiority over playstyles.
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Old 10-07-2014, 10:06 PM   #3430
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As Talon explained in his wall of text which you may not have read, Turn 2 was the big power move in this match and the one that granted the opponent all of the momentum and field control. Politoed was switched out for Mega Manectric, and Talonflame was switched out for Politoed using Talonflame's U-Turn. Essentially, the opponent considered a range of possibilities and came up with:

1. Politoed and Talonflame under threat from 2 damage sources - Charizard's Solarbeam (predicted mega evo) and Rotom's either Volt Switch or Thunderbolt.

2. To thwart the electric attack, he switched in Manectric, which was not Mega Evolved and thus still had Lightningrod

3. To thwart the Solarbeam, he switched in Politoed, which then proceeded to lock Charizard into the Solarbeam on Manectric's slot.

Talon, who was expecting anything but a full shuffle of the opponent's mon to counter any possible method of attack from his current team, was immediately trapped into a massively unfavorable situation with no way out. There was nothing he could have done to salvage this situation - nothing is tanky enough to survive a switch-in on anything the enemies toss towards them (as we see, the remaining members of his team are Salamence and Talonflame), and he doesn't have the offensive power to slay either of his opponent's beatsticks, plus the enemy debuffer (who is dealing constant and consistent damage), in time to regain control of the match.

It was a very tidy power play, and if the opponent hadn't acted as he did, it's possible that Talon could have gained a lot of momentum by springing a sudden Sun + Solarbeam on the enemy's rainmaker. What he wasn't expecting was Talonflame's purpose: rather than being run as a beatstick, Talonflame was actually a fast field manager to get Politoed in and out to refresh Rain after Sun had gone up.

So instead of replying with some asinine comment about how Talon "doubled up too much (Remember that Lightningrod drew the Thunderbolt from Politoed to Manectric, so the only instance of doubling up came on the one turn Manectric used Protect)," try to understand why the events of the battle happened the way they did and keep yer tone civil.
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Old 10-07-2014, 10:17 PM   #3431
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I don't think you're being uncivil, Roto. I just don't think you understand the two battles given some of the criticisms you're voicing.

Let's start with the Tyranitar + Aegislash one. You keep saying that I got greedy and that I could have played it safe and guaranteed won. That's night and day opposite of what I feel actually took place, knowing my team's stats, moves, and the state of the field at that time. Please explain what this surefire path to victory was that you saw for my team.
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Old 10-08-2014, 02:54 PM   #3432
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Wherein Whitney loans me her Miltank. (Random Battle, 15 turns)

Spoiler: show
Getting bored of trying to push Zuisho up past 1900, I decided to take a break and go back to my other accounts which had doubtless fallen victim to ladder decay. Sure enough, I found Juisho hovering barely above 1500, so I've been inching him up bit by bit.

This battle isn't particularly remarkable aside from the fact that once I switched in Miltank I never had to switch her back out: she took on five of his six Pokémon, KOing four and driving the fifth one to self-sacrificially use Explosion just to take her out. I figured that, given the fandom's take on Whitney's Miltank, the battle would be appreciated by some of you.
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Old 10-08-2014, 03:52 PM   #3433
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Altaria

The difference between winning and losing is 0.4%

A few matches I've been in recently I've lost to a scarfed Typhlosion with scarily accurate Fire Blasts, but today I emerge triumphant \o/
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W(DQ)- 22(3) L(DQ)-14(0)
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TP-131 SP- 64.5/96.5 (5SP to Deh, 5SP to FW, 5SP to Desert Spirit, 8.5SP to Fallen Icarus, 10SP to Kyro12, 8SP to Charminions, 10 to aposteriori)
SHUCKS I GOTTA FIX THIS SOMETIME
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Old 10-08-2014, 04:21 PM   #3434
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Double posting because I'm really glad I won this one!

No spoilers here because I want you guys to go into this with SUSPENSE
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Spoiler: show
W(DQ)- 22(3) L(DQ)-14(0)
KO-55
TP-131 SP- 64.5/96.5 (5SP to Deh, 5SP to FW, 5SP to Desert Spirit, 8.5SP to Fallen Icarus, 10SP to Kyro12, 8SP to Charminions, 10 to aposteriori)
SHUCKS I GOTTA FIX THIS SOMETIME
~TL3~

~Fizzy Bubbles~


Credits to Charm for making this!


Come, my birdies!!!! Mwahahahaha!!!!!!


Thanks Pingu for being so nice and making me this~


Credit to TheKnightsFury for the sprite!

Fear my abnormally large signature~

Be Positive Ref~ I <3 you, Lonely Cubone and those who eval'd me~
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Old 10-08-2014, 04:44 PM   #3435
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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Wherein Whitney loans me her Miltank. (Random Battle, 15 turns)

Spoiler: show
Getting bored of trying to push Zuisho up past 1900, I decided to take a break and go back to my other accounts which had doubtless fallen victim to ladder decay. Sure enough, I found Juisho hovering barely above 1500, so I've been inching him up bit by bit.

This battle isn't particularly remarkable aside from the fact that once I switched in Miltank I never had to switch her back out: she took on five of his six Pokémon, KOing four and driving the fifth one to self-sacrificially use Explosion just to take her out. I figured that, given the fandom's take on Whitney's Miltank, the battle would be appreciated by some of you.
You heartless monster, subjecting yoyr opponent to the terror of the Johto region.
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Old 10-08-2014, 05:22 PM   #3436
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Originally Posted by DaisyInari View Post
The difference between winning and losing is 0.4%

A few matches I've been in recently I've lost to a scarfed Typhlosion with scarily accurate Fire Blasts, but today I emerge triumphant \o/
Thoughts:

Spoiler: show
Blegh. You definitely performed better than he did. He enjoyed the benefit of not one but two Regenerators. And he got all of the relevant critical hits. (You only ever got one that I saw and it was one that didn't even matter.) Very frustrating to see the player in your position (who also just happens to be you this time! \o/) losing like this. :\ Oh well. "You win some, you lose some."

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaisyInari View Post
Double posting because I'm really glad I won this one!

No spoilers here because I want you guys to go into this with SUSPENSE
Thoughts:

Spoiler: show
This game, on the other hand, you really ought to have lost. ^_^; I mean, as your friend I am glad you won! But I think we can both agree that his impatience with the PP stall war was his downfall. He had really no reason to withdraw Sigilyph like that. Rather than wasting Stored Powers, he should have just kept spamming Cosmic Power and Psycho Shift again and again, forcing you to muck about with Reuniclus and Delphox and bit by bit causing Delphox to die. All he needed was to nail Delphox on one switch-in, just one (okay, fine: maybe two), and your strategy would have fallen apart. But rather than do that, he grew impatient (and/or terrified by your refusal to participate in the PP stall war any longer) and called his 4x Def + 4x SpDef Sigilyph back for Tyranitar. And that gave you the second chance you so desperately needed.

I am glad you won though for one other reason besides being your friend: and that's your opponent's greed. It was obvious that you were aiming for a critical hit with Kingdra's Draco Meteor, such that you would ignore all stat changes and wallop him for colossal damage. He played Russian Roulette every single time he opted to go for another Cosmic Power rather than just finishing you off immediately with Stored Power. I was rooting for you to get the critical and when you didn't get it I was sure I'd just seen the end of the match.
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Old 10-08-2014, 07:10 PM   #3437
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Altaria

Yeah, my opponent should have stayed in with the second game, but oh well, his loss X3

Speaking of games I should have lost but won, here's another one!
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Spoiler: show
W(DQ)- 22(3) L(DQ)-14(0)
KO-55
TP-131 SP- 64.5/96.5 (5SP to Deh, 5SP to FW, 5SP to Desert Spirit, 8.5SP to Fallen Icarus, 10SP to Kyro12, 8SP to Charminions, 10 to aposteriori)
SHUCKS I GOTTA FIX THIS SOMETIME
~TL3~

~Fizzy Bubbles~


Credits to Charm for making this!


Come, my birdies!!!! Mwahahahaha!!!!!!


Thanks Pingu for being so nice and making me this~


Credit to TheKnightsFury for the sprite!

Fear my abnormally large signature~

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Old 10-08-2014, 07:47 PM   #3438
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I don't think you're being uncivil, Roto. I just don't think you understand the two battles given some of the criticisms you're voicing.

Let's start with the Tyranitar + Aegislash one. You keep saying that I got greedy and that I could have played it safe and guaranteed won. That's night and day opposite of what I feel actually took place, knowing my team's stats, moves, and the state of the field at that time. Please explain what this surefire path to victory was that you saw for my team.
Spoiler: show
Firstly, observe Turn 2. Notice how Aegislash targeted where the frailer Talonflame was rather than Charizard. This pllay shows that your opponent has confidence in KOing Taalonflame with Aegislash if he got the chanc. Keep this idea in mind as you zoom down to turn 5. This was a crucial turn. Your mistake was attacking Mawile with Talonflame, which forced you to fight T-tar with Charizard in the first place. If you had attacked Aegislash, it would've been KOed and you could've avoided Talonflame's KO! "But wait!" you say. "What about King's Shield?" Nothing. At that point you had nothing left to lose by attacking Aegislash, and if you lost a bit of attack, so what? You could switch or attack anyways, where attacking would net you a Mawile KO anyways and force T-tar out, while switching would pressure Tyranitar into coming out against Charizard, giving you a free turn to attack the weakened Pokemon before it got settled. Instead, you aimed for the weaker Mawile which you could've KOed next turn with your SD Shadow Sneak. You had nothing to lose attacking Aegislash, so KOing the lesser threat put you at a weather disadvantage. Since his Aegislash wasn't afraid to attack either of your Pokemon as he (thinks) he could've KOed both(think back to turn 2 when he wasn't afraid to attack), he most like predicted King's Shield from your Aegislash and attacked Talonflame. Your misplay turn the battle into his favor, and if you has attack Aegislash you wouldn't have to risk any hax to begin with.

But it wasn't an unavoidable loss from there either. Wanting to rid of the Aegislash ASAP, you attacked it with Heat Wave. Instead of risking the hax and just assuming Heat Wave would've KOed, you could instead attacked it with your own Aegislash's Shadow Sneak, which has 100% accuaracy, while Protecting Charizard from harm, KOing T-tar next turn with Aegislash. You could've finished off Tyranitar with Iron Head right then and there as you outsped both his Aegislash and Tyranitar as evident-ed by turns 4 and 3, and from there just wailed on Aegislash with Charizard. But instead, you hoped t finish it off in turn 6 my being too sure in your 90% chances instead of asserting victory, and that's what cost you the loss. Yes, the hax was untimely and unfair, but you let yourself take the risk instead of being sure of victory by playing it out a little more safe.
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Old 10-08-2014, 08:08 PM   #3439
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While I appreciate the reply, you've offered an enormous Hindsight Goggles answer. Not much to say to that except "I'll try to get better so that I can call in foresight what we all can call in hindsight."

Don't blame your low scores on decay either. To my knowledge, only the Elo score is subject to decay. The GXE, the Glicko, and of course the W:L ratio are not. Your W:L ratio is where you best beat me, boasting a net win tally of twenty-one to my pitiful five. But your GXE and Glicko scores suggest that we're pretty much at the same point in our VGC careers. I'm cheering you on every step of the way, Roto, and I acknowledge that you are my senior in the format. But I think I've come a ways since six months ago where I could only dream of eclipsing a score of 1200. With a personal best somewhere around 1450, I'm basically where you and so many other players are: the pre-1500 hurdle. Hopefully we will both surpass it soon. Until then, we're cabin mates at Camp Mediocrity. ^^;

EDIT: Whoops. Though I did forget about the part where you mentioned having switched over to more in-game battling. Well, I guess all I can say there is, I won't know how good you are now unless you ladder up a bit on PS. So show me! Let us applaud you for your growth.

Last edited by Talon87; 10-08-2014 at 08:20 PM.
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Old 10-08-2014, 09:11 PM   #3440
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The trick to success. (Random Battle, 31 turns)

Spoiler: show
Regenerator Slowbro and Guts Ursaring team up for Trick Room shenanigans.

Side note: My Rotom-Heat was Choice Scarfed, so that Basculin had to have been as well. I had already been eying Trick Room after seeing Reshiram on the field, but Choice Scarf Basculin sealed the deal.

Wherein I defy the gods. (Random Battle, 26 turns)

Spoiler: show
No matter how many critical hits they gave him ... (Turns 11, 20, 24, and 25)

No matter how few they gave me ... (Turn 3, and with Calm Mind and Focus Sash it was a guaranteed 2HKO anyway)

No matter how much they mocked me with Sleep Talk ... (three of four uses landed on Rest)

... I defied the gods, and I won this game 4-0.

People have given standard Giratina shit in Random Battles before. I hope that this battle demonstrates how Giratina can be useful once you rid the opponent of his STAB Ghost, Dark, and Ice-type attacks. Shell Smash Critical Hit STAB Hydro Pump still only does 49% HP damage. Critical Hit STAB Leaf Storm only does 34%. Respectable. But not enough to take down a RestTalking leviathan.

My two unseen Pokémon were Accelgor and Sap Sipper Miltank. Sceptile was truly fucked, and Huntail wasn't likely to win either. Miltank had Thunder Wave, and if the Huntail did not put up a substitute then that would be gg right there. Most Huntail have Shell Smash, Hydro Pump, Return, Sucker Punch, or Baton Pass, leaving little room for Substitute to squeeze in. (I think I've seen it before, but I don't think it's common.)

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Old 10-11-2014, 07:51 AM   #3441
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Pretty sure you meant to put Defiant there, guys. Not only because you've listed zero non-damaging moves in primary positions (Thunder Wave is relegated to alternative status) but because even your essay talks about things that would only matter with Defiant and explores Prankster as the alternative solution.
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Old 10-11-2014, 07:56 AM   #3442
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Someone should really tell Smogon to change that to Defiant / Prankster.

Phoopes?
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Old 10-11-2014, 07:58 AM   #3443
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For the record, this is from the latest issue of The Smog. No idea how the Dex page looks. Fix it wherever it's broken, regardless.
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Old 10-11-2014, 08:04 AM   #3444
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Huh the dex page is actually correct. That's really odd.
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Old 10-11-2014, 09:40 AM   #3445
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With Juisho currently sitting at 1782 and Zuisho at 1777 (Random Battle scores), I decided to hop back over to Suisho. The account had claimed "1750" for Suisho's Elo, but I knew it had surely decayed. One battle revealed just how much it had decayed by: a whopping 250 points. So off and on I've done some random battles on Suisho, working my way back up into the mid-to-upper 1700s. I'm currently at 1600 even, so it'll probably be a day or three yet before I get there. In the meantime ...

Wherein Tailwind proves useful even in Singles. (Random Battle, 23 turns)

Spoiler: show
Tailwind is one of those moves that benefits greatly from the smaller number of turns typical of Doubles and Triples battles. In a format where most games are won in under ten turns, and a not insignificant portion are won in under six, a move which grants you three free turns of 2x speed is pretty handy. (It's officially four turns but we all know how Game Freak is stupid and applies the counter towards the same turn of usage as well. It's especially stupid in Tailwind's case since attack order is decided at the start of the turn, meaning that a mid-turn Tailwind cannot bump your ally's priority up any.) But in Singles, where most games take longer than 10 turns and many take longer than 15, a move which only gives you a speed boost for three turns of benefit can often be more trouble than it's worth.

But here we have a pretty solid case where Tailwind saved my bacon. The enemy threat? Pyroar, who was easily the fastest creature of the twelve brought to this match. With its Normal/Fire typing and Air Balloon hold item, it would prove a problem for many creatures on my team:
Ho-oh:
  • Tailwind | Substitute | Sacred Fire | Earthquake
  • couldn't hit Pyroar without using Sacred Fire first
  • opponent could easily switch out to other things earlier in the match
Illumise and Exeggutor:
  • 2x weak to Fire
Mega Medicham:
  • only had one-third of its HP remaining
  • would be outsped by Pyroar and thus likely KOed with just one Hyper Voice
Samurott and Noivern:
  • better match-ups against Pyroar ...
  • ... but you see how they fared
Once I lost those last two Pokémon, it became clear that if I wanted to win this match at all, I would have to:
  • make use of Tailwind
  • therefore not lose Ho-oh, at any cost
And so you gets Turns 15 thru 23.

Turn 15: aiming for either the Blastoise KO or the Pyroar lure. I get the KO. Okay then.

Turn 16: Obvious Toxic is obvious. Please let me outspeed, please let me outspeed, please let me outspeed ... YES! Sub away.

Turn 17: Not wasting Tailwind turns yet. Let's Sacred Fire. No matter what he switches in, it'll do something. Alright, he leaves in Florges. And I get the burn. 2HKO in the bag provided he stays in next turn.

Turn 18: And he does. 2HKO.

Turn 19: He's guaranteed to use Scald. (It would be pointless of him to bait me into using Earthquake only to immediately switch to Pyroar. I'm in no danger of running out of PP.) Given this guarantee, I should go for Earthquake immediately and make it a 4v1 game. No need to put a Tailwind up just yet. And let's give ourselves the greatest number of Tailwind turns, just in case.

Turn 20: So out comes Pyroar, the last of his Pokémon. TAIIIIIIIILWIND!

Turn 21: Pop the balloon ...

Turns 22 thru 23: ... and Earthquake away.
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Old 10-11-2014, 12:47 PM   #3446
Whimsy
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Guys, would Rain Dish Tentacruel be legal in VGC, considering Tentacool is in the Kalos dex but Rain Dish is bank exclusive?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lost™ View Post
In Mother 3 Swampy was Flint and you were Hinawa. You two were a wonderful couple. Icarus was your dog, and Toy and I were your twin sons. Well, until a dinosaur impaled you through the heart. So yes, where is he!?
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#still
#fucking
#salty


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Old 10-11-2014, 12:52 PM   #3447
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Breed Rain Dish in XY and it should be okay. As long as the egg is hatched in Kalos its legal
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Old 10-11-2014, 12:55 PM   #3448
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Ah, ok. Now to figure out what to do with Tentacruel lol
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Inactive Ref, laziness op~

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lost™ View Post
In Mother 3 Swampy was Flint and you were Hinawa. You two were a wonderful couple. Icarus was your dog, and Toy and I were your twin sons. Well, until a dinosaur impaled you through the heart. So yes, where is he!?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Panda View Post
#still
#fucking
#salty


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Old 10-12-2014, 10:37 AM   #3449
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So during one of my Black runs that I never finished I ended up getting an Impish Tepig. Rather than throw it away and try to go for an Adamant or Jolly Tepig, I decided "Hey, maybe it might have a viable defensive set!"

It does exist! Third set

I mean I get why it exists pretty clearly: Fuck you Escavalier and Durant and fuck you Stealth Rock. It's just funny because I normally would have discounted a defensive Emboar had it not been for my "luck" with that Tepig. Lo and behold, it does exist.

EDIT: Emboar has a 38% chance of surviving Durant's +1 Superpower AND the Flare Blitz recoil from killing it. I'm beside myself from the giggles.
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Old 10-12-2014, 01:14 PM   #3450
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Wherein I have to deal with a fully-set-up Bisharp. (Random Battle, 28 turns)

Spoiler: show
With a special guest appearance by Shiny Hawlucha. :o

Yeah, this is a pretty good example of the "Never give up!" philosophy in action. Anyone else might have forfeited the moment Bisharp was at +4 sitting behind a sub. But not me! I decided to at least see if I could salvage the match before throwing in the towel. With the score soon 4-5 and Bisharp out of the picture, I decided to play on. And I ended up winning, so all's well that ends well.

Floatzel was choice locked, and you see that being both a blessing and a curse several times throughout this match. The turn that stands out the most for me was when it was Floatzel vs. Skarmory and I had to decide whether to lock myself into Waterfall or Ice Punch. I was worried that Ice Punch might not clinch the KO. (And I don't like doing damage calcs mid-battle ; you can't do that in a tournament, so what's the point in doing it here?) I also believed, from the feedback my opponent's behavior gave me, that he had at least one if not two Pokémon in reserve who were weak to Stealth Rock. Hoping for a Volcarona or a Charizard, I decided to lock myself into Waterfall, ensuring the Skarmory KO. So you can imagine my disappointment when he sent out Dragonite and it was like, "Welp: time to give him a free Dragon Dance then, I guess. " I had no choice. It would have been lunacy to have left Floatzel out like that, choice locked into a Water-type attack that Dragonite doesn't really care about. I had to switch immediately to Haxorus in order to apply pressure the next turn, denying him a second free Dragon Dance; and then I had to switch Floatzel back in immediately and pray that he could survive whatever Dragonite threw his way. He did, and we were back in the game ... only for Donphan to come out and me to be pretty pissed that I was once again locked into the suboptimal move. Not nearly as bad as last time, at least, but man, goddammit. I ended up only winning the game because my opponent either lacked Ice Shard or else didn't think to use it against Hawlucha.

As for why I couldn't send Hawlucha out against Dragonite, you may be wondering: his moves were Roost, Swords Dance, Hi Jump Kick, and some other non-damaging attack. No Stone Edge. No Acrobatics or Flying Press or anything of the sort. Just Hi Jump Kick.
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