I synchronized my Yveltal. That nigga’s rocking Modest nature. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have perfect IV’s for Sp. Atk… but it does have a perfect IV for Speed.
I would love to see a rocks ban, I hate anything that invalidates a lot of pokemon and doesn’t make a lot of other pokemon viable. I’m not sure exactly which bans/rules your talking about, I actually wouldn’t mind seeing some of them unbanned for the short term because of a lot of the changes added(unmissable roar/whirlwind), but I’ve played without smogon rules before and it has historically made the game horrible. Sleep clause is necessary in a world where spore and yawn exist. Evasion sucks because of stuff like old garchomp where a random miss could mean game over, he only had a few real counters, and even revenge kills were hard, so if your donphan missed his ice shard on a set up garchomp the game was probably over(and at that point hazer/phazers aren’t going to survive a round of combat).
As much as you hate the word “overcentralizing” having to put a sleep talker/insomnia pokemon to literally every team sucks. Basically requiring a donphan/mamoswine on literally every team sucked(and even then you’d still just randomly lose a non trivial percentage of the time). I’m more than happy to admit thing should be re-tested when there’s large mechanics change, as long as you understand there was a VERY good reason a lot of that stuff was banned in the past.
Their research stuff is pretty good, otherwise it sucks worse than EventHubs.
I have one question.
Aggron or Hydreigon?
Cool factor or good factor?
Good.
Depends on what you want because they fill completely different niches. Hidreigon has a lot of resists and does a lot of damage, but is kinda slow. Usually you want to use him as a sort of coverage sweeper, switch him in on resists and hit really hard when they switch out. He’s also a special attacker, and loves sticky web support. Aggron is a super bulky tank(assuming mega aggron) that does a lot of physical damage.
Hydreigon by 5 Leagues
in gen V, rocks were just about the only thing that kept dragonite and volcarona from going to ubers, but with the defog buff this gen, rocks should be much harder to keep out on the field, it also helped change the game from being defensively oriented to offensively oriented (still suspect if it’s actually better or not), it’s not broken, i just think it could be turned down (doing 50% to certain pokes is really bad, i wish it did 25% max, although volcarona might become really dumb, but let it be, it’s so much fun to use)
Yes, I am well aware of how broken Double Team/Minimize were back in the day. I played in an R/B/Y tournament where if you didn’t have an Amnesia Mewtwo or a Mewtwo counter(lol), you were already dead, and Double Team/Fire Spin/Toxic/Confuse Ray Ninetales was king.
But you know what, not one person there complained about Mewtwo or Double Team and we all had a blast trying to break Subs and Haze away DTs while Thunder Wave/Amnesia/Recover/Surf Slowbro saved the day.
Sleep Clause has been necessary as well, but now Sleep has been majorly nerfed. The best Sleep move in the game can’t affect Grass types/Sweet Veil/Overcoat/Safety Goggles/Sap Sipper guys, and the second best Sleep move(Dark Void) isn’t even available until late December. Yawn forces switches, and that’s all-I would hope no one is dumb enough to stay in after being Yawned…
All the other Sleep moves have middling to terrible Accuracy, and tend to be on mons with very exploitable weaknesses.
Garchomp was something else, but I still feel its dominance was overhyped slightly. I loved running Sand Veil/Bright Powder Cacturne in Gen III, but never once did I win solely becuase of it. Sure it annoyed the fuck outta my opponents*(its intended job)*, but I only used it to stall for time/force a switch, because that’s all it could really do. It never swept anything outside of one guy silly enough to run Celebi and a bunch of other Psychics.
Yes, I know the history of these bans and clauses(hell, I’ve argued FOR them in the past). I guess as an old FG player, I argue on the side of allowing everything within the game to be playable letting balance form naturally through gameplay rather than surgically cutting out whole sections of the game in order to form some sort of artificial balance.
Well, I need some more bulk on my team and I’m trying to decide between the two. I was thinking Aggron, since he has his Mega, but being Steel/Rock…he has a lot of weaknesses. Dragon/Dark just seems like it would take hits a lot better while still having a pretty powerful arsenal.
outside of aura sphere, roar, and whirlwind, what moves are good that stop evasion moves? haze (although it has terrible distribution) and that’s about it
swift, magical leaf, aerial ace, and the like are only used for STAB technician purposes (which is like…3 pokemon), and the rest are crap
with evasion, you’re forcing me to run a specific move just to stop evasion? i’d rather get rid of evasion and be able to do what i want than have to carry a shitty and situational move
Yeah more things would have to change because of what all rocks keeps in check, old salamence was also mostly only stoppable because of rocks, but I will always hate how many pokemon are just, not playable because rocks exist.
Yawn only just forces switches because of sleep clause. Slap it on something bulky and just keep yawning, their choice is to stay in and get slept, or switch into another yawn, where your only choice is to stay in and get slept or switch etc… Your choices then are switch until they are out of PP or get one swing in per mon put to sleep until it dies. That sounds like REALLY bad gameplay to me.
Garchomp wasn’t THAT dominant as long as you ran one of the few counters, since his counters were generally pretty good at things other than just countering him that wasn’t that bad. I played a bunch in a pokemon draft(meaning an environment where there was only one of each pokemon available between all the people), and it quickly became apparent how disgusting he was when there was only one guy with a donphan. That’s that over centralization thing, garchomps lone existence meant you HAD to have one slot of your team devoted to one of the few pokemon that could stop him.
As another old school fighting game player, I’d much rather have a fun diverse game with rules than team Insomnia/blaziken counter/rock set up/rapid spinner/spin blocker/phazer. Though again, I do totally agree that the game mechanics have changed a LOT since all these rules were made up and are definitely worth revisiting.
@The Martian
The biggest problem for Hydreigon is that he’s 100% free to Fairy types.
They resist Dark, are immune to Dragon, and will deal 4x damage to his typing.
Mega Aggron loses rock typing, so if you have a mega slot aggron has a lot less weaknesses, and his stats are WAY better defensively than heidreigon.
you can probably also hone claws, hone claws raises attack and accuracy. No guard(hey doublade buff!) works. stuff like Yawn and Destiny Bond probably work, though I’m not positive if those are auto hit. Toxic spikes and roar is probably a solid combo to stop it since evasion guys usually need a while to set up.
I believe I’ve done this before in the Competitive thread, but here goes- You have plenty of options beyond the never miss moves- the oft hated OHKO moves ignore Accuracy modifiers*(but 30% Accuracy, so eh), the once-useless Keen Eye Ability ignores Evasion mods(but you’ll just say all those guys suck or have other abilities they’d rather use in the Smogon metagame)*
You can simply Taunt the DTer… Taunt is a useful move for stopping a lot of set-up mons*(but no one uses it in the Smogon metagame, apparently). You can Snatch(one of my favorite moves)* the DTs for yourself, or use Psych Up*(incoming ‘but no one uses those competitively because they suck’ rebuttal), which also work well for stealing Subs, Recovery moves(Snatch), or gaining the same benefits as your opponent.
There’s Sweet Scent, that lowers opponents’ evasion two stages(making lower accuracy moves like Thunder more accurate as well)*, so it takes them two DTs to eliminate your one use of SS.
Clear Smog(which never misses) eliminates stat changes and does damage(doesn’t work on Steel Types), Odor Sleuth, Miracle Eye, Foresight(these work on Steel Types), that return Evasion to normal no matter how many stages they have*(but you’ll just say they suck and are a waste of a moveslot despite the fact that they remove Ghost types’ Immunity to Fighting and Normal and in the case of Miracle Eye, the Dark Types’ Immunity to Psychic)*
There is Mind Reader and Lock-On, that make sure the next attack hits no matter what*(go ahead and say you’ll simply switch out-- Good. Now your Evasion boosts are gone)*
Minimize- There are several moves that get doubled power and perfect accuracy if they target a Minimized pkmn-- Stomp, Steamroller, Dragon Rush, Phantom Force, and Flying Press*(but you will say they suck otherwise despite their chances to flinchD-Rush/Stomp/Steamroller, hit through ProtectP-Force, and dual Flying/Fighting typingFlying Press)*
The tools are there. The fact you are unwilling to utilize them is irrelevant…
Future sight is also perfect accuracy isn’t it?
Only 100%… It can miss. I do my own research, unlike some folks at some other site, lol.
Evasion and OHKO moves are entirely stupid concepts that deserve to be banned, simple as that.
OHKO moves can drastically turn matches in other person’s favor even if they’re the worse player. The opponent has an Excadrill and a have a Hippowdon to wall it and take hits from it, Slack it Off, Whirlwind him out or Earthquake him, yadda yadda yadda. His Excadrill is sent out on something it threatens. I switch to Hippowdon to take the hit. He goes for Fissure. Regardless of the fact that it’s a 30% chance of landing, if it does land, I just lost my Hippowdon, something that would’ve otherwise been a sure counter to that Excadrill, to no fault of my own; I made the right play, but the opponent was simply luckier than me, so my Hippowdon dies. This isn’t comparable to hax like crits or anything. If the opponent has an OHKO move, unless my Pokemon has an immunity (in which case you can forget about it if it’s Sheer Cold) or has Sturdy, there’s nothing I can do to control that. Either one of my Pokes dies, or the opponent misses. There’s nothing more that needs to be said about it.
Evasion moves seem to be a subject of controversy for some reason, because in reality they’re just in the same realm as OHKO moves. I’d like to see where skill can be found in Double Teaming/Minimizing, and when you’re content you’ve got enough boosts, start setting up. It’s an incredibly braindead strategy that can get rewarded by leaps and bounds if RNG is not on your side. I’ve lost games I otherwise would’ve won due to Snow Cloak/Sand Veil activating once or twice. How about missing 3, 4, 5 times?
Taunt is a great move, I will not argue that. HOWEVER, the real problem is finding a Pokemon who’s willing to give up a moveslot for it (and Snatch has the same problem) A lot of offensive Pokemon get access to Taunt, but relatively few can use it effectively since they usually need their extra slots for either coverage or set-up. Support Pokemon that get Taunt (unless they have Prankster) usually find themselves with 4 Moveslot syndrome as it is. Skarm would like Taunt to stop set-up and status, but it’s pretty difficult when it needs Roost to stay alive, Spikes to actually be useful while it’s walling things, Whirlwind to not get set up on itself, and Brave Bird to do decent damage and not be Taunted as well! And not to mention, Taunt doesn’t have --% accuracy! If Taunt is going to be your main means of stopping Pokemon from using evasion moves on you, boy will you feel embarrassed when you miss a Taunt. Evasion moves are not going to be reliably counterable by Taunt unless EVERY ONE of your teammates – all six-- are carrying Taunt, and you know that they don’t. Nay, CAN’T.
Taunts pretty common, or at least it was in gen 4 when I played a lot. Aerodactyl, crobat, and other random fast utility guys ran it all the time. I assume it’ll be a good option on noivern as well. I assume if it becomes important again it’ll resurface.