Bronzong

[Amy]

I would like to use a Bronzong as my team's special wall since it has a ton of useful resistances. I need some help, though, on its moveset. This is what I am thinking of...

Bronzong @Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
Nature: Careful (+Sp. Def., -Sp. Atk.)
EV's: 252 Hp, 252 Sp. Def., 4 Def.
Hypnosis
Stealth Rock
Gyro Ball
Earthquake

 

[Samson]

find a replacement for gyro ball. also, it doesn't need a FULL 252 evs for sp def. you should probably spread some more in defense. i know you say you want a special wall, but he's not as efficient as a special wall considering that he's most threatened by physical attackers.

other than that, it's decent.

 

[Amy]

What is a good move to replace gyro ball with?

Confuse Ray, Heal Block, Trick Room, Rock Slide, Payback, Toxic..?

 

[Alter Ego]

*Sigh* Samson on the job again, I see...really, I'd suggest taking any of his advice with a pinch (Nah, better make that a tablespoon) of salt. They have a tendency to be quite far from thoroughly thought out. :\ Keeping Earthquake on Bronzong is a case in point, if there's any physical attack it can deal damage with then it's Gyro Ball because of STAB and Bronzong's low speed. Really, though, this thing is more of a support than a sweeper, so Stealth Rock is really all you need in terms of damaging moves, but I guess Psychic or Gyro Ball for random bapping. Anyhow...it should be something like this:

Bronzong @Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
Nature: Bold/Calm/Sassy/Relaxed
EV's: 252 Hp (Rest split among the defenses, depending on what you want to focus on)
Hypnosis
Stealth Rock/Psychic/Gyro Ball
Rest
Reflect/Light Screen/Trick Room

Trick Room only if you have slow sweepers on your team that will benefit from it, otherwise Light Screen or Reflect to cover whichever attack kind you have more problems with. Rest is an obvious choice since it's a wall with no other access to healing. Really, though, Bronzong is pretty much equally suited for special and physical walling, so just pick the one that will benefit your team more. Also, the -Speed natures are only for if you use Gyro Ball and/or Trick Room, since being slower is beneficial in both cases.

 

[Frostweaver]

Regardless of the Pokemon capable of doing "a lot of damage" or not, it should have the minimum of one attack... as much as how its main purpose is to stall, take hits and use stealth rock, it just needs one attack like everything else to scratch people with. Otherwise, it's a self-invitation to either let the opponent boost up, or heal up those Pokemon that's just dangling on the edge of death or force a switch upon yourself cause that 40 hp Salamence is going to eventually pwn you if you can't do some sense of moderate damage.

Keep psychic or gyro ball, stab will boost it from horrible to acceptdable damage. It's not going to sweep, but enough to usually break subs that are used to block status attacks, and finish off weak Pokemon. Earthquake is also usable even without stab, just cause of base damage and good typing.

I honestly cannot think of an exception where a Pokemon got 4 moves and none of them deal direct damage at all... Like, in any generation.

I'll personally go gyro ball, stealth rock, hypnosis and protect.

(protect, only because I'm choice-item paranoid. Rest and pseudopasses are perfectly good choices as well.)

 

[Alter Ego]

Regardless of the Pokemon capable of doing "a lot of damage" or not, it should have the minimum of one attack... as much as how its main purpose is to stall, take hits and use stealth rock, it just needs one attack like everything else to scratch people with. Otherwise, it's a self-invitation to either let the opponent boost up, or heal up those Pokemon that's just dangling on the edge of death or force a switch upon yourself cause that 40 hp Salamence is going to eventually pwn you if you can't do some sense of moderate damage.

Keep psychic or gyro ball, stab will boost it from horrible to acceptdable damage. It's not going to sweep, but enough to usually break subs that are used to block status attacks, and finish off weak Pokemon. Earthquake is also usable even without stab, just cause of base damage and good typing.

I honestly cannot think of an exception where a Pokemon got 4 moves and none of them deal direct damage at all... Like, in any generation.

I'll personally go gyro ball, stealth rock, hypnosis and protect.

(protect, only because I'm choice-item paranoid. Rest and pseudopasses are perfectly good choices as well.)

Actually, it's commonplace for Umbreon. :3 Also, some Skarms (E.g. Whirlwind/Substitute/Spikes/Rest) make do without them. There are others too, but those two are from the top of my head. ^^ Also, Protect won't do you much good since a lot of pokes come with Life Orb these days, meaning that they've got free choice of moves while still being able to deal butt-kicking damage. Welcome to D/P. ;D

 

[Frostweaver]

but that skarmory can deal damage or with subs but forcing the switch itself, thus causing damage with spikes. Bronzong cannot. Plus, most skarmory got a Drill Peck somewhere.

And I've always thought that next to focus punch weakness (for a wall, you can be weak to plenty of things and shrug off most of them, except fighting, ground and ice. Those are the worse 3 weaknesses to have. It really weakens your durability and forces you to switch and eat stealth rock damage a lot.), it's that Umbreon just cannot learn anything to deal damage with. At least now it got Dark Pulse to "do something"...

(personally consider Toxic as a damaging move as well, even though steel and poison are immune to it. Just because of that, it's still a damaging move. Afterall, the almighty earthquake is neutralized by flying and levi as well anyway~ The only downside to toxic-only is additional weakness to sub, and inability to break sub.)

Perhaps I should rephrase it: all Pokemon have methods to deal damage in one way or another without help at the very minimum.

(Stealth rock/spike by itself is not "methods to deal damage without help." Those moves together with pseduohaze on the same Pokemon, yes.) =P


EDIT: Blah thought of an exception... passer Smeragle is valid and it cannot beat a Magikarp with only splash...

 

[Alter Ego]

Nyu, most Umbreons don't deal damage, you know. Take Chaosbreon for example:

Umbreon @ Leftovers
Trait: Synchronize
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
Mean Look
Taunt
Wish/Moonlight
Baton Pass

See? No feasible method of damage yet this thing used to be one of the standard builds. Also, my personal favourite_

Umbreon @ Leftovers
Trait: Synchronize
Relaxed Nature (+Def, -Spd)
Taunt
Wish
Baton Pass
Protect

Again, no damaging moves but its team supporting abilities are awesome. Taunt lets it act as an intermediary for harmless passing while the relaxed nature (combined with minimum speed IVs) means that it can take a hit from all but the slowest opponents and then Baton Pass a Wish to a wounded party member. Toxic is really one of the least appealing uses for Umbreon and I honestly don't see Dark Pulse changing its role. The only damaging move I could think of on a D/P Umbreon would be Pursuit, but probably only if you're running Curse on the set.


True about Bronzong's phazing ability, though, although technically Hypnosis can force switching. It's more of a switch in, Reflect/Light Screen or Stealth Rock, switch out type pokémon, imo. But hey, I did say that damaging moves are completely possible options. They should still be STAB, though, since there aren't really any specific targets that it could hurt, meaning that STAB is preferably for overall damaging potential. I still maintain that Gyro Ball > Earthquake. Unless, of course, you're scared about Magnezone.

 

[Samson]

one thing-- gyro ball is based off of the foe's speed. good STAB but completely unstable.

 

[Alter Ego]

one thing-- gyro ball is based off of the foe's speed. good STAB but completely unstable.

That's a half-truth, actually. Gyro Ball depends on the difference in Speeds, so a pokémon with very low Speed (such as Bronzong) would get high to decent power from that move against anything except the really sluggish species (mostly fellow Gyro Ball users), especially with minimized speed. Very little instability versus a huge payoff against fast pokémon.