Chit-Chat: Welcome to the Strategies & Movesets forum for Sun & Moon!

[srinator]

rototiller dugtrio+ mix celebi

 

[Aristo]

I'm curious as to the optimal timeframe in which one can start building competitive teams. Say you just bought ORAS and started it up for the first time. Should you give the whole game a playthrough before worrying about grinding for "perfect" Pokémon? Understandably, there are lots of concepts to learn and Pokémon to memorize especially for competitive play. When should you commit to getting a team set up?

 

[skyburial]

I'm curious as to the optimal timeframe in which one can start building competitive teams. Say you just bought ORAS and started it up for the first time. Should you give the whole game a playthrough before worrying about grinding for "perfect" Pokémon? Understandably, there are lots of concepts to learn and Pokémon to memorize especially for competitive play. When should you commit to getting a team set up?

I would wait until you complete the game because of a lot of the teambuilding tools that become available to you in the epilogue (Battle Frontier, legends, soaring between locations, etc).

The story took me about 30 hours to complete, and then the rest is a matter of how quickly you pick up the process of creating competitive teams.

It takes anywhere between 1 and 4 hours to IV breed the right spread on average, depending on egg groups, access to the right Dittos, what egg moves you're including, and whether you require a hidden ability. Getting the hidden ability can take additional time depending on the Pokemon and who you know - I'd refer you to the Trade Corner if you need something that's hard to find.

Catching the right legend can take anywhere from an hour to 3 weeks depending on your requirements and how much time you put in. If you need it to have a certain Hidden Power type along with perfect IV's, I think I remember reading that it's a 1-in-3000 chance. I usually don't use anything that needs Hidden Power to work for this reason, but that can be limiting.

I'd say you're looking at at least 2 weeks of diligent gameplay to get your first team ready. On average. We're here to help if you give us a starting point.

 

[Aristo]

Thanks for the info! Guess I'll worry about progressing through the game first and then turn my attention to competitive when all the end-game features are available. I'm not sure how much it matters, because more hardcore battlers might end up getting them all at some point, but for a starter, is one version of ORAS preferred over the other? I ask in terms of the Pokémon unique to each version - does one roster have more 'competitively viable' uniques than the other?

 

[skyburial]

Thanks for the info! Guess I'll worry about progressing through the game first and then turn my attention to competitive when all the end-game features are available. I'm not sure how much it matters, because more hardcore battlers might end up getting them all at some point, but for a starter, is one version of ORAS preferred over the other? I ask in terms of the Pokémon unique to each version - does one roster have more 'competitively viable' uniques than the other?

https://www.serebii.net/omegarubyalphasapphire/exclusives.shtml

If you're going to be playing competitively on cartridge, is it going to be in the VGC format or in Link Battles against folks who agree to Smogon rules?

 

[Polar Spectrum]

I'm curious as to the optimal timeframe in which one can start building competitive teams. Say you just bought ORAS and started it up for the first time. Should you give the whole game a playthrough before worrying about grinding for "perfect" Pokémon? Understandably, there are lots of concepts to learn and Pokémon to memorize especially for competitive play. When should you commit to getting a team set up?

I cannot stress enough the importance of learning pokemon before you learn competitive battling. Don't rush it too, there's 718 of them fuckers now, and most people I know in competitive couldn't tell you the ballpark stats, movepool, ability and typing of more than maybe 100 that see use in meta play. Learning the basics of everything going on in the game will save you from looking like a moron much later on when you don't know what to do because your opponent threw something out that you haven't even seen before; and have no understanding of how to deal with it.

 

[skyburial]

Don't rush it too, there's 718 of them psyduckers now

Diancie is number 719, buddy ;)

 

[Nah]

Ok, so ya know how like a few weeks ago about literally every Heatran started running Magma Storm? What suddenly made everyone wanna start using that?

Also it's annoying how it rarely seems to miss despite having near-Focus Miss level accuracy

 

[PlatinumDude]

Ok, so ya know how like a few weeks ago about literally every Heatran started running Magma Storm? What suddenly made everyone wanna start using that?

Also it's annoying how it rarely seems to miss despite having near-Focus Miss level accuracy

Magma Storm is able to prevent non-Ghost Pokemon from switching out, which lets Heatran deal with its own counters. Power Herb + Solar Beam, for instance, lets it lure in and take out Water Pokemon.

 

[Polar Spectrum]

Whoops - hahah thanks Sky, kinda ironic I missed that.

But oh boy

Someone discovered something effective on something that's been there for a while but nobody thought to use until it became a thing simply because nobody used it beforehand.

I wonder where this will lead?

(that last bit's actually not sarcasm, I'm curious to see where this takes heatran. And fairies.)

 

[srinator]

Mega Zard x is s ranked again, I always did say this thing is low key insane

 

[Megan]

I find it a little bit sad, that Safety Goggles don't prevent entry hazard damage. That way it could be a lot more useful in singles (and adding that effect shouldn't do any harm to doubles, since there's no hazards, anyway). In general GF should introduce items that grant immunity to at least Stealth Rocks, considering that there's basically no match without them. Certain types having a natural immunity to them would also be nice, considering Flying types are immune to Spikes and Sticky Web and Poison types are immune to Toxic Spikes.

 

[skyburial]

I think, on a larger scale, multi-meta level, that Rock already gets the shaft on weaknesses. You think about it - It's weak to 5 types, 4 of which are common. Offensively, Rock is resisted by 3 common types. It's essentially the physical equivalent of the Ice type, and even has more weaknesses than it.

Making a type immune to stealth rock would mean making it immune to Rock type as a whole. And that would do a number on the meta(s), IMO. No more sand teams :(

Now, maybe if there was an item (let's say it's called the Hard Hat) that lets a Pokemon switch into entry hazards unscathed? I'd put that all over my Talonflame.

 

[Zeffy]

I think Stealth Rock would be much more manageable if it didn't factor in type weaknesses like Spikes. That'd make the move quite boring though, and perhaps would make it less popular.

 

[srinator]

Stealth rock is broken but is a necessary evil

 

[Anti]

Mega Zard x is s ranked again, I always did say this thing is low key insane

for me, it's the ultimate "it's better on paper" pokemon, though it's still really good. i think it would be significantly better without flare blitz recoil, probably straight-up broken, but this can make it difficult to sweep even in very favorable match-ups. its checks are all really shaky though: talon needs to be offensive to do any kind of significant damage, hippowdon gets mowed down by flare blitz on the switch or at +1 with prior damage, diancie and altaria basically waste themselves in an attempt to beat it, etc. and the guesszard element isn't exactly fun.

as for stealth rock, i really like its presence in the metagame and would want compelling evidence (a suspect ladder and then some) that we'd be better off without it, but it is indeed very obviously broken. neutral type weakness is an interesting counterfactual though i'd be stunned if its popularity decreased if the base damage was still 12.5% since it's so necessary for offenses and balances to exert offensive pressure and equally necessary for stall to tax opposing offensive pokes exerting that pressure.

 

[srinator]

I am pretty confident that we are not better off without rocks, I mean sure it hurts everything and does on rocks effectiveness and is probably the only good "offensive" rock move that is consistent lol. But it also keeps in check what would other wise be harder to pressure like the zards, talons, kyub etc I think even tho this is thing is objectively broken it has its own significance and allows things to stay in equilibrium

 

[Polar Spectrum]

Stealth rocks is another format exploitive strategy, just like Shadow Tag or Baton Pass. It plays on mandatory switching in myriad scenarios and limits who can be used on teams straight up based on typing and teammate support to remove stealth rocks. Due to limited amounts of viable spinners / defoggers too, stealth rocks abusers can usually play to maintain the rock-exploiting by picking off the one pokemon that can eliminate rocks on the opposing team based on matchups and isolation in singles. But, it's been accepted as part of the meta already, so it's pretty safe I think. There's a reason it's not viable in doubles thoooooo

Mega Zard X seems pretty stronk indeed; I wouldn't guess it needs banning though.

 

[KorpiklaaniVodka]

Tailwind+SD Zard X owns all. It breaks walls and then breaks more walls, and is good against offensive teams at late-game.

 

[Professor_Jared]

As someone who has been using Charizard X for quite a while and experimenting with various builds during these last two weeks, I can honestly say that it's S Re-rank is very well deserved, and also that if it weren't for SR, Zard X would be even more OP than it is currently. So yeah, I do think that SR is a necessary evil that needs to stay.