Inflicting Status

[Devalue]

What status effects, if any, do you typically use? Do you like burning your opponent? Are you a Toxic staller? Do you fish for freezes at every opportunity? Includes volatile statuses too, such as Leech Seed, confusion, and Attract. Are there any statuses you rarely use? Could be competitively, in a playthrough, or whatever.
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Very common: paralysis. Persists until healed. Pairs well with long debuffing + buffing strategies (-6 Attack/Special Attack, switch, then buff). Never needs to reapply it. Hits most of the time, unlike Hypnosis. Takes effect immediately too, unlike Yawn. Falls back on them if paralysis is not an option, though.

Another common one: Leech Seed. Assists in setup very well.

Rare:

• Burn. Might be as rare as freezing something. Dislikes putting the opposing Pokemon on a timer. Probably finishes buffing before it dies, sure. Only helps against physical Pokemon. Would not be terrible versus the right Totem, though.
• Poison. Lends itself towards stalling. Does not describe that as engaging gameplay. Only grows worse against trainers with heals. Resorts to it in only dire situations (heavily outleveled) or Pokemon built around it (Toxapex).
• Confusion in Generation 7+. Not an efficient use of your turn.
• Attract. Forgets it exists often. Not great because of fading when either Pokemon switches out. Plus, how many Pokemon even learn this naturally?

Could list the dozen or so other "status conditions" which are technically volatile (Taunt, Torment, Tar Shot, Heal Block, Gravity...). Tends to think of them as debuffs/stat drops more than a status condition like Sleep.

 

[Delta Crowned Sword]

Hmm....

In my case, I feel that Toxic is pretty common for me, though it mostly comes by using offensive moves because Taunt set-up nullifies passive moves.

Nuzzle is pretty common and annoying for me. It can't be stopped and damage is less too. The speed teams are severely falter with this.

If you consider this as effect, then at correct time, Encore causes useless struggles, although I fear taunt set-ups more somewhat.

My general strategy involves statball formation + Substitute + Leftover/leech seed/recover, so inflicting status is welcome addition !!


With that said, I remember Malignant Chain Pecharunt can potentially cause both Poison + Confusion, hence I had struggled against it for first few battles.

 

[Lapis_Laz95]

i usually try to inflict sleep to stop a tough enemy and dish out a few moves

Otherwise i use poison for the final blow when my HP is low.

 

[Corveone]

The less a status condition depends on luck, the more I like it.

Burn
Poison
Leech Seed
Paralisis Mainly used for the Speed drop (and for catching Pokémon, because Sleep is volatile). Don't count on opponents being fully paralized as a reliable strategy though.
Sleep Mixed bag honestly. I don't like it much, but I don't mind using it with certain Pokémon.
Confusion and Infatuation It's just pure RNG
Freeze Can't be even considered a battle strategy. It's just something that may happen from time to time but you have zero control over it.

Other status effects I like: Taunt, Encore.

I also love that Status conditions can be still used in almost any situation. Allways found it annoying how in some RPGs bosses are immune to everything but raw damage, seriously what's the point of having such advanced mechanics and battle strategies if they're useless when you need them most, and only work against trash mobs that you can kill by just spamming regular attacks most of the time?

 

[Sheep]

Paralysis has been my favorite for catching things, especially since I'm too lazy to keep putting opponents to sleep as they wake up, lol. Otherwise I don't think I use them very much. Leech Seed is a whole load of fun though. <3

 

[Zeostar]

I seem to have no luck at all with sleep. I lean towards paralysis and even infatuation because it never runs out.

Since I'd rather not grind in these games, toxic + protect was good for the older games without the modern EXP share. It worked very well with an underleveled team.

 

[Explorer of Time]

I personally tend to inflict confusion a lot whenever I get a Pokemon with access to Confuse Ray. It has 100% accuracy and it can be stacked on top of other status conditions, what's not to like? I don't tend to use Swagger unless I know my opponent doesn't use any physical attacks, though.

Paralysis is an excellent status and I usually try and run Thunder Wave whenever I have an Electric-type on my team, and even Stun Spore on occasion when I don't have Thunder Wave access. That speed decrease is just too good, even if the chance to skip turns never happens. I also run Body Slam or Secret Power in place of Return for the Paralysis chance when I use Normal-type moves, even with the lower base power.

Toxic is also quite good, but I rarely if ever run it on more than one Pokemon at a time. I don't normally use non-Toxic poison unless it's the secondary effect of a move I'm using primarily for Poison-type damage, like Sludge Bomb/Wave or Poison Jab.

I don't particularly like Sleep since it's too unpredictable and its moves too inaccurate, but I'll still run it on anything that has access to Spore.

Like non-Toxic poison, I'll take Burn as a secondary effect but usually won't go out of my way to inflict it with Will-O-Wisp, unless I'm temporarily teaching it to a team member to counter a specific boss battle, or don't have any better status moves available.

Freeze is great when it happens but otherwise too rare to rely on.

Infatuation is very situational and I don't use it that often, but I sometimes run Attract on a female Pokemon in early generations, because of the worse movepools and disproportionately-male teams that you face. It worked excellently with my Crobat in Crystal that also ran Confuse Ray, but it hasn't been that useful to me otherwise.

Leech Seed is a good status in theory, but in practice I'd only really want to use it on a very defensive Pokemon, and most of the Pokemon that can learn it are Pokemon I wouldn't use for a stall moveset in the first place.

 

[ReKoil]

I don't really use any of them in a normal fight. Paralysis and Sleep are my go to's for catching Pokemon, but that's it.

Freeze is too dang rare, sadly. I'm currently doing an Ice types only playthrough in Scarlet and have seen it happen only twice so far.
I actually rather liked Frostbite from PLA and wish they'd have replaced Freeze with it. Either that or make Freeze more frequent.

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

I tend to only use status moves when I have a Pokemon on my team really suited for them. Otherwise I tend to only think about them for things like Legendary battles or raids in newer games. I tend to heavily favor Poisoning in casual runs, Burning in more challenge based stuff like Nuzlockes. I never look for Freezes. The rest of the non move specific statuses fall into the 'if I have a Raichu, I tend to Paralyze, etc, catagory'

 

[Megan]

Paralysis is my go to when catching Pokemon since it never ends and the possibility of gaining a turn for free every now and then. It's just a little unfortunate that Electric types are immune to it in later games. ^^"

 

[giradialkia]

In my main playthrough, or rather at the end of it, I always make myself a Gallade with False Swipe, Hypnosis, Thief and Heal Pulse, which becomes the mainstay in my party. It's perfect for catching things. I guess the point is I use Hypnosis in my general gameplay regularly.

Online, if I'm going for status I tend to go for Poison. My favourite strat used to be my Mega Venusaur running Giga Drain, Leech Seed and Toxic. It just refused to go down.

Otherwise, I tend not to go for strats that require status effects. I do think I've seen a lot more Freeze this gen, but it's likely because the Ice type got a nice buff with the newly adjusted Hail/Snow effect, meaning people are using more Ice Pokemon/Blizzard. Still, feels like that rate of effect is way higher than 10% 😅

 

[Palamon]

Attacks that do damage over time like Poison, Burn, and Leech Seed if I have it on me. Some status effects are hard to trigger, like Sleep and Frozen, so I don't think I really bother with trying for those.