Heatran

[Juxapose]

How do I deal with Heatran?

Before you get into the cookie cutting answers of "Fighting types" and "Ground types", I must remind you that I do in face use these in my team. So lets get to it:

Heatran comes out. I send Blaziken out.

Heatran switches to Slowbro. I am forced to switch out.

Slowbro uses an attack which damages new Pokemon, and immediately switches to Heatran once again.

Heatran recovers any damage with Leftovers. Forced to switch to Blaziken again.

Blaziken switches in, and gets hit with earthquake by Heatran. Blaziken gets KO.

Pokemon with ground attack comes in. (I don't know, pick one.)

Heatran switches with Slowbro and takes the Earthquake hit hit like a boss. (Assuming it did not just send out a Flying type which does no damage.)

Forced switch again, but new Pokemon takes hit from switch. Most likely a KO since it was hit already earlier in battle. Another KO.

Ground user Pokemon comes out. Now it's a 3 vs 1 battle with 3 healthy pokemon against 1 Pokemon at the disadvantage against at least 1.




So. . . Anyone has any advice?

 

[Anti]

is this supposed to be ou? blaziken is banned.

anyway, i don't know why you're singling out the heatran as the example you provide pegs slowbro as equally problematic. what you are describing is a smaller version of what many players struggle with, which is breaking stall, or in a less extreme circumstance, breaking down the opponent's defensive core.

heatran and slowbro are not offensive pokemon most of the time. if you can't take hits from them, then your team is probably a frail offense team. in that case, you want pokemon with the power to overwhelm these walls and cores of walls. these mons are usually called breakers, and they are the easiest way to make an opponent pay for the inherent passivity in their defensive pokemon. there are plenty of choices: gengar (life orb), landorus, thundurus (mixed defiant), mega gardevoir, mega charizard (either one), kyurem-b, mega metagross, keldeo (specs), and quite a few others. these pokemon apply pressure to mons like heatran and slowbro.

in terms of heatran specifically, the best check is defensive starmie. natural cure allows it to remove lava plume burns or toxic poison upon switching out, it can rapid spin away heatran's stealth rocks, and it can attack it with scald for decent damage. gliscor is another good check to defensive heatran. keldeo and gyarados are common offensive checks. the list goes on.

 

[skyburial]

I'm gonna guess that you were playing Battle Spot Singles based on the pokes in rotation. Correct me if I'm wrong.

It sounds like your strategy for getting past Heatran is team synergy (much like what your opponent's got goin on) and switch predictions. They were playing you like a violin and the mental game is very important. When you see a pattern start to develop on switches like this, it's often safe enough to bank on a prediction.

It looks as though you like overpowered Pokemon, and since you're not playing by Smogon rules, a good choice would be a Greninja with Life Orb. But the Starmie that Anti mentioned is also a good choice. Its move pool allows for almost as much of a creative coverage mix as Gren's.

You can also put Knock Off on your Blaziken to handle bros.

 

[Nah]

I wanna echo what Anti and skyburial have said. You seem to lack answers for stall and need to learn a bit about prediction. It's something I've noticed in your threads. Admittedly handling stall and being good at predicting is easier said than done, but even getting a little better at those things should help you a lot.

But to provide more than just a +1 to above posts, another thing to consider is using a lure. It's basically what it sounds like: a Pokemon that draws in something that normally checks/counters it but carries a coverage move or something to beat the would be check/counter. One example of this is Hidden Power Fire Latias being a Scizor lure. For your Slowbro/Heatran issue, random thing I can think of off of the top of my head is like Celebi with Earth Power; beats Slowbro, and Heatrans think that they'll force Celebi out, only to eat an Earth Power.

Mega Gardevoir also checks them both fairly well, provided that Focus Blast doesn't miss on Heatran.

 

[Juxapose]

is this supposed to be ou? blaziken is banned.

I play on my 3DS where Smogon rules do not exist.

heatran and slowbro are not offensive pokemon most of the time. if you can't take hits from them, then your team is probably a frail offense team.

True, my team is usually composed of hard hitting sweepers. However, I do have some highly defensive Pokemon who takes care of spamers such as Talonflame. Most of them do not do anything against Heatran. Only my Samurott has the defensive and offensive capabilities to handle Heatran. But still no good as nothing stops my opponent from switching to a Raikou with Assault vest.

in terms of heatran specifically, the best check is defensive starmie. natural cure allows it to remove lava plume burns or toxic poison upon switching out, it can rapid spin away heatran's stealth rocks, and it can attack it with scald for decent damage.

I don't have a starmie, so I'll think about training one.

It sounds like your strategy for getting past Heatran is team synergy (much like what your opponent's got goin on) and switch predictions. They were playing you like a violin and the mental game is very important. When you see a pattern start to develop on switches like this, it's often safe enough to bank on a prediction.

I tried this, but there's just too much going on in a battle for predictions. Most of the time, my opponent knows what Pokemon to switch to make me stuck and force a switch without truly knowing what moves my Pokemon has. Unless my opponent was 100% sure that I don't have knock-off, why risk switching in to a psychic type? Plus there were so many times I was 100% sure I had the advantage, but good ol' fashioned hidden power proves me wrong all the time. Not to mention the always lovely disadvantage of going into batle with 6 pokemon, but only allowed to carry 3. So besides predicting moves, I must also predict what Pokemon my opponent will use, and center my team against that team, just to walk in into a completely different team and not enough firepower to handle that team.

I wanna echo what Anti and skyburial have said. You seem to lack answers for stall and need to learn a bit about prediction. It's something I've noticed in your threads. Admittedly handling stall and being good at predicting is easier said than done, but even getting a little better at those things should help you a lot.

Yes, you are correct in your analysis that walls and stalls are not my favorite types of strategies. They drag on, they are annoying, never fun to deal with, and most importantly something that I was never good with. I have gotten better at this, but I always hate that dealing with it has always been up to chance, not skill. A well placed crit or a miss can kill off your strategy, then you have no choice but to forfeit because the RNG god said "no". Oh god, how many times did Serperior's Leaf Storm miss against Milotic just to get a crit Ice Beam in the face. How can Hypnosis with an accuracy boosting item miss 3 times in a row several battles in a row?

Anyways, I'll try to apply these tips to my future battles. But I would like to get a few more tips if possible.

 

[Khaotic Kebab]

How do I deal with Heatran?

Before you get into the cookie cutting answers of "Fighting types" and "Ground types", I must remind you that I do in face use these in my team. So lets get to it:

Heatran comes out. I send Blaziken out.

Heatran switches to Slowbro. I am forced to switch out.

Slowbro uses an attack which damages new Pokemon, and immediately switches to Heatran once again.

Heatran recovers any damage with Leftovers. Forced to switch to Blaziken again.

Blaziken switches in, and gets hit with earthquake by Heatran. Blaziken gets KO.

Pokemon with ground attack comes in. (I don't know, pick one.)

Heatran switches with Slowbro and takes the Earthquake hit hit like a boss. (Assuming it did not just send out a Flying type which does no damage.)

Forced switch again, but new Pokemon takes hit from switch. Most likely a KO since it was hit already earlier in battle. Another KO.

Ground user Pokemon comes out. Now it's a 3 vs 1 battle with 3 healthy pokemon against 1 Pokemon at the disadvantage against at least 1.




So. . . Anyone has any advice?

The problem here isn't Heatran specifically - it's the switches your opponent employs.
Learning to predict attacks or switches is pretty much the base for any successful battle. With practise, you'll eventually get a feel for what people will generally try, so you can adjust accordingly.

 

[Juxapose]

The reason I place Heatran as the problematic Pokemon is because of my tons and tons of battles I get involved with, Heatran is always the one who constantly switch out over and over and over. I have no idea why; I can only assume it has something to do with it's typing and ability. Since attacking directly has yielded no results, I figured that there has to be another way around this.

Right now, I came up with a few ideas, but I am already burnt out with training new monsters for now. I already have over 50 well trained Pokemon to cycle through without the need to add more to the roster. I wish that there were a greater variety of monsters that knew mean look or some other anti-switch move.

 

[halcyonic]

heatran is fairly easy to deal with. like the others have said, you seem to have trouble with predicting and stallbreaking.

just practice more and get more experience, that way you'll know what sets are common on pokemon and their basic strategy and such so that you can predict a switch and stuff. also with stuff like lando-i, gengar, mega diancie, mega metagross, it aint hard to break stall tbh.

 

[Juxapose]

Sorry about the double post, but I was just involved in a battle which explains what I'm talking about. Here's the battle video:

RP3W-WWWW-WWXZ-JUCP

Even though Heatran only had 1 HP, he decided to switch to Cobalion. I ask, why? How did he know I was going to use Dark Pulse instead of Scald? Tried to predict that he was going to switch into a different pokemon, and Cobalion was the last Pokemon I would guess.

I know that I won and technically I shouldn't complain. But I lose tons of battles this way. Heatran switches, pulls out Pokemon I have no clue how he/she knows that can resist move, takes out Pokemon. Only reason I won is because I used 3 Pokemon that can take Heatran so I don't have the problem of running out of ground/water moves.

One last thing, what kind of noob uses choice scarf on Metagross?

 

[skyburial]

For your Slowbro/Heatran issue, random thing I can think of off of the top of my head is like Celebi with Earth Power; beats Slowbro, and Heatrans think that they'll force Celebi out, only to eat an Earth Power.

Not an option on cartridge.

mega diancie

Also not an option on cartridge.

Guys I know that it's the predominant format here but please read the thread before assuming that someone is playing on Showdown under Smogon rules. This forum does not have an established policy on what format we post about, unlike Nugget Bridge or the Smogon forum.

To the OP, I would say it would be worth your time to take bigger risks for now and see what works with your team, especially since you like running goodstuff hyper-offensive teams. And if you need someone to breed you a Starmie, it's one of my favorite mons and I have a big collection. Since it's genderless, it will be inately difficult to breed unless you have a 6IV Ditto. HMU if you're interested.

 

[Nah]

I never said he had to use Earth Power Celebi. It was just an example.

Thing is though, when you're a PC member you have access to all the lovely trade shops, some of which that actually have some normally difficult to obtain things.