Battle Strategies

diamondeyes · Aug 16, 2014

I couldn't find a thread like this already, so I decided to make one.
discuss strategies! for tiers in competitive battling, or in-game for the various battle facilities, or just in general for specific pokemon. :O

strategies for weak pokemon to get them to be effective?
strategies for synergy between two or three pokemon? etc.
on the first note, I tried to make use of delcatty of all pokemon because I like it a lot but its stats are just so bad. :C so I devised a sort of triples thing, between delcatty, a follow-me using poke, and a cherrim. the strategy was something like:
delcatty@leftovers,
normalize
substitute
sucker punch
last resort
cosmic power
and get cherrim to go sunny to activate flower gift which would boost del's attack and special defense, meanwhile using the follow me poke to absorb hits. I tried this out once triples appeared on showdown but it didn't work very well.. haha.

as for an actually good strategy, some of you may know about the friend guard ability! which belongs to only vivillon and NFEs :T
my main team (I'm pretty much exclusively double battles) revolves around an eviolite cosmic power clefairy with friend guard, dual screens and heal pulse and a multiscale dragonite. (of course I get shut down by taunt) they are a match made in heaven ;A; I much prefer a tanking style of battling to mons that can't take any hits. I think I'd panic too much!

additional neat strategy: one thing m-banette has over sableye is priotity cotton guard! combined with will o wisp, it shuts down physical attackers. it's saved me a lot.

long OP over. :P

MoxieInfinite · Aug 17, 2014

Bait in RT Raikou (Zapdos to an extent) with stuff like Eggy/Gengar/Cloyster and boom so stuff like BORAT can sweep, aka what Borat himself did around 2004 as he said. [GSC]

BSlam DrumLax + SD (Rest) Marowak to overwhelm Skarm so either can break teams. [GSC]

HP Ghost Forry + Missy + RoarKou to shuffle **** to death, and win the spikes war ez. [GSC]

Bait Swampert with HP Grass Metagross so Salamence/Aerodactyl/DDtar can sweep. [ADV]

U-turn Zapdos vs SpDef Heatran into Duggy for the trap so SD Scizor can sweep.[DPP]

Lure in Jellicent with Forry and VoltSwitch into Ttar for the trap, and let SubCM Keldeo destroy the rest of the team (vs stall). [BW]

Spam Brave Bird with Talonflame. [XY]

Did I do it right?

diamondeyes · Aug 17, 2014

MoxieInfinite said:
Spam Brave Bird with Talonflame. [XY]

Did I do it right?

hehe, I love going up against talonflames because my dragonite or vaporeon can deal with them extremely easily.

speaking of fire types, I got reminded of an extremely common setup I've seen on doubles: venusaur and charizard-Y. though I haven't run into that combo at all recently, which sucks seeing as my dragonite would be able to actually deal with it compared to my vaporeon who I used to always have with clefairy at the start.

Nah · Aug 17, 2014

I always thought that this was a nice little combination for Rotations:

Turn 1: Lead with Talonflame, use Tailwind
Turn 2: Rotate Choice Band Rampardos in, proceed to annihilate things with STAB Head Smash

It's nice because anything that doesn't resist Rock is turned into a smear on the wall, while most resists still take heavy damage from it (except for a select few, like Steelix). It's not perfect though, since Head Smash's 80% accuracy means you miss half the time, plus there's the massive recoil damage. And other ******** like Quick Claw hax or Focus Sashes.

MoxieInfinite · Aug 17, 2014

diamondeyes said:
hehe, I love going up against talonflames because my dragonite or vaporeon can deal with them extremely easily.

252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Dragonite: 246-289 (75.9 - 89.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Vaporeon: 231-273 (49.7 - 58.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

stop lying. or start playing good people.

diamondeyes · Aug 17, 2014

MoxieInfinite said:
252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Dragonite: 246-289 (75.9 - 89.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Vaporeon: 231-273 (49.7 - 58.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

stop lying. or start playing good people.

my dragonite carries rock slide. it also has multiscale and the support of a friend guard clefairy. (and often, screens.) and maxed HP.

MoxieInfinite · Aug 17, 2014

diamondeyes said:
my dragonite carries rock slide. it also has multiscale and the support of a friend guard clefairy. (and often, screens.) and maxed HP.

its still 2hkoed after rocks. and rocks WILL be up sometime in the game. rock slide is irrelevant, outrage ohkoes. what does friend guard clefairy help? and why arent you using clefable. screens are irrelevant due to few turns, and talonflame CAN find more turns to come in with decent support. still cant see your point here.

diamondeyes · Aug 17, 2014

MoxieInfinite said:
its still 2hkoed after rocks. and rocks WILL be up sometime in the game. rock slide is irrelevant, outrage ohkoes. what does friend guard clefairy help? and why arent you using clefable. screens are irrelevant due to few turns, and talonflame CAN find more turns to come in with decent support. still cant see your point here.

-one: I don't play OU, I just play normal battle spot doubles. I'm not going by standard smogon sets or whatever.
-two: friend guard is an ability which decreases the damage done to clefairy's partner in a double battle. clefable doesn't get this ability. so I use eviolite clefairy. screens are to minimise damage further. multiscale decreases damage done to dragonite as long as its HP is above half.
aka: dragonite is not getting 2hko'd any time soon. not once has a talonflame given me any trouble.
-three: your calcs were run on a 4 HP dragonite. mine is maxed.

also, I have NEVER entered a single battle spot doubles battle on pokemon showdown where someone used stealth rock. ever.
I also lead with dragonite and clefairy in doubles. I rarely switch out dragonite until it's ko'd. so.. still little problem with SR.

Nah · Aug 17, 2014

Just to throw a couple of calcs in here for this little argument:

252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Multiscale Dragonite through Reflect: 81-95 (20.9 - 24.6%) -- guaranteed 5HKO

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Multiscale Dragonite through Reflect: 141-166 (36.5 - 43%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

@diamondeyes: Multiscale is only in effect when Dragonite is at full HP.

MoxieInfinite · Aug 17, 2014

if youre playing doubles, why the **** are you using dragonite or vaporeon? both suck there. use salamence, its much better in dubs.

lol why are you using clefairy when it dies on like turn 2? fake out breaks multiscale, everything marches through now. id really like to see your w/l ratio.

diamondeyes · Aug 17, 2014

MoxieInfinite said:
if youre playing doubles, why the **** are you using dragonite or vaporeon? both suck there. use salamence, its much better in dubs.

lol why are you using clefairy when it dies on like turn 2? fake out breaks multiscale, everything marches through now. id really like to see your w/l ratio.

@zekrom thanks for letting me know!

I'm using dragonite because it's one of only two pokemon who has the ability multiscale, and it goes well with friend guard.
and vaporeon goes well with clefairy too, because it's bulky, and takes even less damage with friend guard, leftovers and aqua ring.
clefairy with eviolite is surprisingly bulky. it usually takes a long time for it to die, and moreso if screens are up. mine has cosmic power as well.

I wouldn't know how to view a win loss ratio. I'd say it's about even. :/ I don't see why you're being so srs bsns about everything. did I personally offend you? I'm just using pokemon that I like. not everyone just wants to spam OU mons.