I'm using a trick room team with Mega Camerupt and Cresselia, and I couldn't be happier. It's the playstyle I've been looking for, and I'm having a lot more success with it than the last team I made.
Bartholamue on
Steam- SteveBartz Xbox Live- SteveBartz PSN Name- SteveBartz
I'm thinking about using aegislash as part of my spooky cup team (completely unoriginal, I know).
I'm thinking of using it as a special attacker with flash cannon and shadow ball. King's shield is pretty much a must. Do you think it would be better to run wide guard in my last slot, or take advantage of the abundance of dark pokemon in the environment and hit them with sacred sword, which I expect to still hit super hard even though it is a physical attack.
Something akin to that was what I was thinking. I'm a little fearful of fire types. A lot of the pokemon I'm looking at have a weakness to fire (galvantula, weavile, mawile).
Volcarona looks popular, and I think heat wave is a popular choice on it. Wide guard would help defend against that.
I might need to include something specifically to hate Volcarona. Water types that jumped out at me are basculin, sharpedo, and kabutops.
Someone on reddit advised to consider muk of all things. The reasoning was that the environment was full of special attackers, and that an assault vest muk could tank those hits respectably while still punching fairly hard. The reasoning continued that psychic type attacks would be less common in a dark rich meta, so it would mostly only have to fear ground attacks. It would also have stab super effective attacks against granbull, which was apparently a popular choice on showdown as one of the only fairies in this dark rich environment.
Muk is actually not that bad. It has access to Stockpile and Gunk Shot, and has decent bulk. The abilities it has is its drawbacks but you might have some success with it.
Steam- SteveBartz Xbox Live- SteveBartz PSN Name- SteveBartz
Weavile @ expert belt (I wanted life orb on my kabutops, and I think the ice punch/knock off/low kick combination grants super-effective coverage against most of the spooks)
Ability: Pressure
-Fake Out
-Ice Punch
-Knock Off
-Brick Break
I probably made some flawed decisions here. But I aesthetically like all of these guys.
Basic gameplan is to usually lead with galvantula and weavile. Focus sash and fake out try to keep galvantula alive long enough to setup sticky web. Then go down swinging with special attacks or volt switching galvantula out.
I'll chose my other two based on what I suspect will be most effective against my opponent's team.
Kabutops looks like he'll hurt a lot of things when outspeeding opponents. I think most who are trying to use him are using him as a swift swimmer on a rain team. I'm hoping sticky web slows the opponent down enough for him to outspeed them. Weak armor can boost his speed too.
Muk has some bulk to him and should shrug off special attacks. He's got good coverage with his Ice/Fighting/poison/ghost attacks. He can poison anything with any attack, which is nice. He should live long enough to ice punch a dragon or flier, or gunk shot granbull.
Volcarona becomes pretty scary if I can setup one quiver dance. There are a lot of dark types for bug buzz to hit too.
Aegislash. Yep. He's still good.
I'm sure some more synergistic teams will run circles around me, but I think this is ok.
I got wreckt in my first two fights, but scored my first win in my third fight.
RNG was on my side. Galvantula scored two back-to-back critical hits with Thunder. (although I don't think that zubat would have survived a regular thunder. I not sure what they were doing with a Zubat on their team though)
S4LW-WWWW-WW2V-Y6NE
I haven't done online battling before, so this is my first online win
I AM PROUD OF YOU!
I thought I had until tomorrow to make a team, looks like I am gonna have to throw something together tonight. Worst case scenario I can use my ghost team from last year + a few extra odds and ends I have that are allowed and just jump right on in. The benefit of having ridiculous amounts of Pokemon bred and trained, I suppose.
Haha. Took a break and scored another win. This time without getting carried by back-to-back STAB critical thunders. I beat out a trick room team. Muk saved the day by being ultra-slow (but mostly because he shadow sneaked a bunch of ghosts). Muk also sort of trolled their toxic spikes when Galvantula tagged him in with volt switch.
8FKG-WWWW-WW2V-YDEU
I'm pretty sure I misplayed using sticky web at all. I probably shouldn't use that against what looks like trick room teams. I also don't understand why his golurk tried to dynamic punch his confagrigus. Misclick?
edit:
Called it a night after 10 matches. 6 wins, 4 losses. My last match was a loss against a trick room team. I'm still getting used to what are trick room setters to recognize a trick room team going in. I think practically every ghost in the meta can learn trick room though... At this point I'm just going to assume any team packing Golurk is a trick room team and my priority 1 is "Forget sticky web. Gank Golurk's partner."
Highlight of the evening is when a lunatone put my Galvantula to sleep. The enemy mostly ignored it for awhile after that. Then suddenly Galvantula woke up and OHKO'd one of their guys with a critical STAB thunder.
I just noticed that you can re-battle AI controlled copies of your opponent's team in the battle replays. Definitely going to start recording more defeats to try and see what I could have done to win (even if the AI pilot isn't as good as a human piloting the team).
I also realized that I made a critical mistake when I both chose Kabutops as my counter to Volcarona and decided to give it a Life Orb.
I foolishly was thinking "Yeah, kabutops has 4x resistance to fire. He'll definitely survive to hit. Then the life orb will make him more damaging against the rest of the opposing team, and he can rampage with sticky web slowing them down." I should have done my homework and realized that Smogon advises a lot of people to run Giga Drain on their Volcaronas. Volcarona outspeeds kabutops with zero speed boosts, and a single quiver dance negates the effect of sticky web. So it can outspeed and kill my kabutops with a giga drain before I can KO it with rock slide.
I think what I SHOULD have done is:
A: Given my kabutops a choice scarf to increase the odds of me outspeeding the volcarona.
B: Given the kabutops a focus sash to increase the likelihood of it surviving to rockslide the target.
B: Used something that outspeeds volcarona with zero speedboosts. I was considering Basculin or Sharpedo, but now upon closer inspection both of them are also slightly slower than Volcarona.
C: Used something that less obviously has a high powered rock attack, and preferably is capable of surviving a boosted heat wave.
edit:
Ahaha. Just had my first opponent rage quit. It might have had something to do with Ice Punch successfully freezing his Aegislash. (Ice punch had targeted his gliscor, but he swapped into aegislash). I also think he expected his gliscor to be more tanky and awesome, and my Muk's Ice Punch for 4x super effective took him by surprise.
Muk and Galvantula have been pretty great. A lot of people haven't been throwing much hate towards galvantula. I guess they're not appreciating how much damage STAB Bug Buzz does to their dark types, or how much his accurate STAB Thunders inflict to most other things.
I just noticed that you can re-battle AI controlled copies of your opponent's team in the battle replays. Definitely going to start recording more defeats to try and see what I could have done to win (even if the AI pilot isn't as good as a human piloting the team).
I also realized that I made a critical mistake when I both chose Kabutops as my counter to Volcarona and decided to give it a Life Orb.
I foolishly was thinking "Yeah, kabutops has 4x resistance to fire. He'll definitely survive to hit. Then the life orb will make him more damaging against the rest of the opposing team, and he can rampage with sticky web slowing them down." I should have done my homework and realized that Smogon advises a lot of people to run Giga Drain on their Volcaronas. Volcarona outspeeds kabutops with zero speed boosts, and a single quiver dance negates the effect of sticky web. So it can outspeed and kill my kabutops with a giga drain before I can KO it with rock slide.
I think what I SHOULD have done is:
A: Given my kabutops a choice scarf to increase the odds of me outspeeding the volcarona.
B: Given the kabutops a focus sash to increase the likelihood of it surviving to rockslide the target.
B: Used something that outspeeds volcarona with zero speedboosts. I was considering Basculin or Sharpedo, but now upon closer inspection both of them are also slightly slower than Volcarona.
C: Used something that less obviously has a high powered rock attack, and preferably is capable of surviving a boosted heat wave.
edit:
Ahaha. Just had my first opponent rage quit. It might have had something to do with Ice Punch successfully freezing his Aegislash. (Ice punch had targeted his gliscor, but he swapped into aegislash). I also think he expected his gliscor to be more tanky and awesome, and my Muk's Ice Punch for 4x super effective took him by surprise.
Muk and Galvantula have been pretty great. A lot of people haven't been throwing much hate towards galvantula. I guess they're not appreciating how much damage STAB Bug Buzz does to their dark types, or how much his accurate STAB Thunders inflict to most other things.
This is what getting better at Pokemon looks like, for reference.
I've been working early and late at work the past few days so I haven't had extra time to breed, but I have practically half a box of Pokemon eligible for this competition, so I will probably just throw some of them together. Would have been fun for me to finally make my dream Marowak team, though.
I still think power up punch wouldve been a better choice than brick break on Muk, though
Hmm. Perhaps. I'll keep that in mind for next time. Muk certainly has enough bulk to survive punching a couple of times in a row most of the time. It would give me an option to recover from an intimidator switching in. Brick break has managed to OHKO several dark types so far. My team is sort of locked in stone now though. The attack has been super useful both on Muk and Weavile. I think it would come down to how frequently does Brick Break fail to OHKO or put the opponent in range of the teammate to finish off?
If I'm doing my math right, two back-to-back power up punches would have a combined power of 100 (40 + (40*1.5)). While two brick-breaks would have a combined power of 150. Would that 150 be wasted on overkill? Can I actually successfully get back-to-back power up punches onto a target? Muk can probably survive to do so, but there are a lot of ghosts in the spooky meta. If my opponent sees me power-up-punching to boost myself, they might be able to safely switchout their dark type for one of their ghosts.
I do sort of wish that I had tried to give my Muk minimum speed IV's. Muk is slow. He's not going to be outspeeding anyone. He's probably not going to outspeed anyone with sticky web up. But he is outspeeding the deliberately slow pokemon on trick room teams. Since Muk in practice isn't outspeeding anyone under normal conditions, it might have been nice to have someone who ends up getting combat priority in the event my opponent sets up trick room.
General_Armchair on
3DS Friend Code:
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
0
Halos Nach TariffCan you blame me?I'm too famous.Registered Userregular
For anyone in the UK the Hoopa distribution event has started; you can get codes from GAME stores which work in X/Y and ORAS, running till November 5th.
How did you do in the competition general armchair? I missed out on it.
I am dying to know!
Update and more detailed team info in the spoilers. Note that this team was thrown together from Pokemon I already had, and thus has some pretty significant weaknesses, though I did fiddle around with movesets before locking in to the competition so it wasn't so bad. I didn't have much time to battle this weekend, so only managed to go 3-1.
Volarona /Modest / Sitrus Berry / Flame Body
Heat Wave / Bug Buzz / Protect / Quiver Dance
I like Volcarona a lot. It can take a hit and can dish a lot of damage out. I mean a LOT. This thing is a beast, and bulldozes through unprepared teams. I should have run Giga Drain over Quiver Dance to help with Rotom-Wash, though Quiver Dance did help in one battle.
Gengar / Timid / Focus Sash
Dazzling Gleam / Shadow Ball / Icy Wind / Protect
Dazzling Gleam went over Will O Wisp because of an expected prevalence of Dark types in the tournament, though I didn't see them all that often. It still managed to OHKO a Hydreigon, though. Icy Wind continues to be one of my favorite moves. I'm still marvelling at Gengar's movepool- it's obscene how many options this Pokemon has!
Gliscor / Impish / Toxic Orb / Poison Heal
Rock Slide / Earthquake / Protect / Tailwind
I wasn't sure about Gliscor going in, but coming out, I am in love with it again. It doesn't get too much damage off, though with its speed and bulk, it was more about Tailwind support and getting fast Rock Slides off in hopes of flinching my opponent and wrecking opposing Volcarona. Rock Slide is a fantastic move.
Hydreigon / Modest / Choice Specs
Dark Pulse / Draco Meteor / Fire Blast / Earth Power
I should have run Choice Scarf on this. I just never felt confident enough in terms of it's bulk to bring it out- it was 50/50 on OHKO'ing my opponent and being knocked out before it got a chance to attack. Perhaps when I am a better player and can predict when I will be able to Icy Wind / Tailwind this will be an effective set for me, but not now.
Weavile / Jolly / Pressure / Life Orb
Knock Off / Icicle Crash / Fake Out / Low Kick
My MVP. I was nervous running it without Protect, and it lead to a few harrowing scenarios, but it was easily my top performer. It has the right combination of speed and strength to pull through battles, and if it can't get the OHKO, Knock Off was able to at least bring opponent's down a few notches.
Sableye / Careful / Prankster / Rocky Helmet
Knock Off / Will-O-Wisp / Recover / Taunt
More experienced with Sableye in Singles play, where I've had this set demolish unprepared teams before, and it managed to play some mind games with my opponents in this tournament, too. Will-O-Wisp destroys physical attackers, Taunt stops many Pokemon in their tracks (including fellow Sableye, though the speed tie is scary). I wanted to run Protect on here, but figured that Prankster Recover might be more useful, though still not sure if it was a good idea. Knock Off is in case I get taunted, and just to provide additional damage/support.
Pokemon.com released a LOT of regional top-8 teams over the weekend and I think my next move might be to breed one and then see how it performs. Play around with what the "pros" use, so to speak.
I didn't get to compete much in the subsequent days.
My final tally was 18 matches. 10 wins, 8 losses. A barely positive W/L ratio, but still positive so I'm happy. Is there a place I can look up my final rating? It was 15##...I didn't climb much higher than the 1500 it started me at.
I really liked Galvantula. I felt that a lot of people didn't appreciate the threat it could be. He had a pretty large special attack and his STAB bug-buzzes were super-effective against a large percentage of the field. His high accuracy STAB thunders hit like a truck against most everything else. My opponents didn't really seem too prioritize killing him, and he frequently went unattacked until he managed to get at least one thunder off. I sort of felt that my focus sash was wasted on him since nobody focus fired him as the round started. Maybe a red card would have been better to force people to swap something in to the sticky web once they realized that "oh, STAB thunder actually hurts ALOT."
Galvantula also got really lucky and scored me WAY more critical hits than he should have. I swear he must have scored like 6-7 crits. A critical STAB thunder really throws a wrench in an opponent's plan.
One time I paired Galvantula with Volcarona as my lead. I think my opponent opened with Hydregion and Crobat as his lead. Galvantula got a free kill on his crobat because they focused 100% of their firepower at my Volcarona (who opened with Protect).
Trick room teams gave me a lot of trouble. It really sucked when I failed to identify a team as a trick-room team and wasted a turn casting sticky web.
Hydregion was EVERYWHERE. I probably should have had more things that could reliably take him out. I swear 80% of the teams I faced had him. Volcarona showed up a fair bit, but kabutops did a respectable job taking it out. I still wish I would have had the sense of mind to give my kabutops a choice scarf to help guarantee that it lands a rockslide against volcarona.
Weavile did a lot of work for me, but people did recognize it and threw a lot of hate his way. If I were to makeup the team again, I would have given the kabutops the choice scarf and given the life orb to weavile. Weavile's so fragile that I don't think the lifeloss would have mattered much. But weavile one-shot a lot of things and maimed many others. The ice/dark/fighting coverage of knock-off, ice punch, and brick break gave him super-effective options against most things I went up against.
Muk was awesome too. He was my ace in the hole against fairies (particularly Granbull). He was also just all around really bulky. I was satisfied with his movepool. Gunkshot/ice punch/brick break/shadow sneak gave him good coverage. Maybe power-up punch would have been more effective, but he wasn't fast enough to outspeed things even with sticky web down. Brick break worked fine for me. I do wish I would have tried to give him 0 speed IVs. I don't think he stood any chance of outspeeding anyone under any circumstance, so I might as well have had him as someone who could potentially outspeed my opponent's trick room. I don't know. Maybe that's foolish, but that's what I would have tried if I did it again.
I didn't use my aegislash much. A lot of the teams looked like they had things that might really threaten ghosts (go figure, amirite?). Although I think I threw some people for a loop when I refused to use king's shield. First attack connects. The next turn nobody attacks aegislash because "obviously I'm going to king's shield." Then I hit them with a flash cannon. Surely I wouldn't be stupid enough to have my slow aegislash go three turns in a row without using king's shield to protect it? Apparently I am. Enjoy your flash cannon.
I really liked Volcarona too. I mostly just used it to mop up stragglers with heat waves. I probably should have led with it more often. Then I would have been in a win/win position where either I successfully setup sticky web with galvantula or volcarona successfully sets up with a quiver dance. Such a leading duo would have been obliterated by a rockslide though. It might have been worth it to open like that most of the time.
It was fun. I'm looking forward to trying to put together another team for the next event. Didn't someone say it was supposed to be in November and they're excluding the most heavily used pokemon from the previous events? That will be interesting.
I'll probably try to stick to the same basic gameplan with a sticky web galvantula (I don't think galvantula is in fear of being too heavily used. I like the little bug. I realized that it reminds me of the Tachikoma's from Ghost in the Shell. Reminiscent of spiders, but not enough legs). I definitely need to do my homework and find a way to deal with trick rooms though.
Anyone here playing Pokemon Shuffle? How the flying fuck do you beat Mega Gengar? I know the game claims that you don't have to spend money but holy shit I'm going to have to use a complexity -1 on him aren't I? I've tried every day for like a week and a half now.
Anyone here playing Pokemon Shuffle? How the flying fuck do you beat Mega Gengar? I know the game claims that you don't have to spend money but holy shit I'm going to have to use a complexity -1 on him aren't I? I've tried every day for like a week and a half now.
Some levels are nearly impossible to beat without items. Gotta spend those coins on something.
OH GOD I HATE THIS SHIT FUCK
is it an in-store wifi distribution thing, or a card with a code? If it's the latter, could anyone be so nice as to getting one for me? Pretty please with a bow on top?
OH GOD I HATE THIS SHIT FUCK
is it an in-store wifi distribution thing, or a card with a code? If it's the latter, could anyone be so nice as to getting one for me? Pretty please with a bow on top?
Im guessing it'll be over wifi. Less effort to make it work everywhere.
OH GOD I HATE THIS SHIT FUCK
is it an in-store wifi distribution thing, or a card with a code? If it's the latter, could anyone be so nice as to getting one for me? Pretty please with a bow on top?
PM or @ me when the event is happening and I'll get you a code if they're cards.
Anyone here playing Pokemon Shuffle? How the flying fuck do you beat Mega Gengar? I know the game claims that you don't have to spend money but holy shit I'm going to have to use a complexity -1 on him aren't I? I've tried every day for like a week and a half now.
I've been playing nearly every day trying to beef up the strongest pokemon, and even with the best team, I can't go back and beat it without spending coins on items.
At least earning coins is easy. Just keep playing the Meowth stage with pokemon that don't delete the coins, and work towards making a line of 5 coins before winning. After a few tries, you'll get the hang of where best to try lining up the 5 coins and about how much you want to deal damage between Meowth giving you more coins.
So, with that, earning 530 coins each time, spending a couple thousand on items will only really end up costing you a few hearts to earn the coins back (without having to spend actual money on jewels).
With the jewels, I don't spend them. I save them up until I have 12 and then redeem them for the 48k coins. Haven't spend a penny on the game yet, and I'm enjoying the levels so far.
Beat the main stages and just working on the Expert levels...haven't quite gotten them all yet.
Yeah, the Mega pokemon in Shuffle are often assholes. My theory is they feel comfortable doing that since the only reason to replay said levels is to get an S rank while normal pokemon stages encourage replay due to the capture mechanic as well.
Yeah, the Mega pokemon in Shuffle are often assholes. My theory is they feel comfortable doing that since the only reason to replay said levels is to get an S rank while normal pokemon stages encourage replay due to the capture mechanic as well.
S-ranking the Mega levels is great, but I just like that I can earn jewels from them. In actuality, nothing gained and nothing lost, but I feel like I'm "sticking it to the man" by not paying actual money into the game.
*nothing gained and nothing lost because I'm eventually spending more coins than the jewels could give, but spending coins that I was just making without other reasons to spend them was just as gainful. *shrug*
Anyone here playing Pokemon Shuffle? How the flying fuck do you beat Mega Gengar? I know the game claims that you don't have to spend money but holy shit I'm going to have to use a complexity -1 on him aren't I? I've tried every day for like a week and a half now.
I've been playing nearly every day trying to beef up the strongest pokemon, and even with the best team, I can't go back and beat it without spending coins on items.
At least earning coins is easy. Just keep playing the Meowth stage with pokemon that don't delete the coins, and work towards making a line of 5 coins before winning. After a few tries, you'll get the hang of where best to try lining up the 5 coins and about how much you want to deal damage between Meowth giving you more coins.
So, with that, earning 530 coins each time, spending a couple thousand on items will only really end up costing you a few hearts to earn the coins back (without having to spend actual money on jewels).
With the jewels, I don't spend them. I save them up until I have 12 and then redeem them for the 48k coins. Haven't spend a penny on the game yet, and I'm enjoying the levels so far.
Beat the main stages and just working on the Expert levels...haven't quite gotten them all yet.
But you can only run the Meowth stages once a day and only on weekends. It's so painful.
I did, however, get Articuno finally. So I'm making way way through the Expert stages right now as I can't stand looking at Mega Gengar's stupid face any more. Hell I couldn't beat regular Gengar without using items.
Anyone here playing Pokemon Shuffle? How the flying fuck do you beat Mega Gengar? I know the game claims that you don't have to spend money but holy shit I'm going to have to use a complexity -1 on him aren't I? I've tried every day for like a week and a half now.
I've been playing nearly every day trying to beef up the strongest pokemon, and even with the best team, I can't go back and beat it without spending coins on items.
At least earning coins is easy. Just keep playing the Meowth stage with pokemon that don't delete the coins, and work towards making a line of 5 coins before winning. After a few tries, you'll get the hang of where best to try lining up the 5 coins and about how much you want to deal damage between Meowth giving you more coins.
So, with that, earning 530 coins each time, spending a couple thousand on items will only really end up costing you a few hearts to earn the coins back (without having to spend actual money on jewels).
With the jewels, I don't spend them. I save them up until I have 12 and then redeem them for the 48k coins. Haven't spend a penny on the game yet, and I'm enjoying the levels so far.
Beat the main stages and just working on the Expert levels...haven't quite gotten them all yet.
But you can only run the Meowth stages once a day and only on weekends. It's so painful.
I did, however, get Articuno finally. So I'm making way way through the Expert stages right now as I can't stand looking at Mega Gengar's stupid face any more. Hell I couldn't beat regular Gengar without using items.
No, you can run Meowth's regular stage (37) as often as you want.
Add me on Switch: 7795-5541-4699
+1
IlpalaJust this guy, y'knowTexasRegistered Userregular
I am extremely skeptical any McDonald's near my neck of the boonies has a "Nintendo Zone" whatever the fuck that is.
FF XIV - Qih'to Furishu (on Siren), Battle.Net - Ilpala#1975
Switch - SW-7373-3669-3011
Fuck Joe Manchin
Anyone here playing Pokemon Shuffle? How the flying fuck do you beat Mega Gengar? I know the game claims that you don't have to spend money but holy shit I'm going to have to use a complexity -1 on him aren't I? I've tried every day for like a week and a half now.
I've been playing nearly every day trying to beef up the strongest pokemon, and even with the best team, I can't go back and beat it without spending coins on items.
At least earning coins is easy. Just keep playing the Meowth stage with pokemon that don't delete the coins, and work towards making a line of 5 coins before winning. After a few tries, you'll get the hang of where best to try lining up the 5 coins and about how much you want to deal damage between Meowth giving you more coins.
So, with that, earning 530 coins each time, spending a couple thousand on items will only really end up costing you a few hearts to earn the coins back (without having to spend actual money on jewels).
With the jewels, I don't spend them. I save them up until I have 12 and then redeem them for the 48k coins. Haven't spend a penny on the game yet, and I'm enjoying the levels so far.
Beat the main stages and just working on the Expert levels...haven't quite gotten them all yet.
But you can only run the Meowth stages once a day and only on weekends. It's so painful.
I did, however, get Articuno finally. So I'm making way way through the Expert stages right now as I can't stand looking at Mega Gengar's stupid face any more. Hell I couldn't beat regular Gengar without using items.
No, you can run Meowth's regular stage (37) as often as you want.
Wait............ WAAIT. He drops as many coins as when he's the weekend or is it fewer?
e: nope, only has 3 coins on the map. I guess it's better than nothing.
Posts
I'm thinking about using aegislash as part of my spooky cup team (completely unoriginal, I know).
I'm thinking of using it as a special attacker with flash cannon and shadow ball. King's shield is pretty much a must. Do you think it would be better to run wide guard in my last slot, or take advantage of the abundance of dark pokemon in the environment and hit them with sacred sword, which I expect to still hit super hard even though it is a physical attack.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Aegislash @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Stance Change
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 100 SpA / 156 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
– Shadow Ball
– Flash Cannon
– Wide Guard
– King’s Shield
but my thing has a not 0 IV speed stat and I use Substitute instead of Wide Guard.
Volcarona looks popular, and I think heat wave is a popular choice on it. Wide guard would help defend against that.
I might need to include something specifically to hate Volcarona. Water types that jumped out at me are basculin, sharpedo, and kabutops.
Someone on reddit advised to consider muk of all things. The reasoning was that the environment was full of special attackers, and that an assault vest muk could tank those hits respectably while still punching fairly hard. The reasoning continued that psychic type attacks would be less common in a dark rich meta, so it would mostly only have to fear ground attacks. It would also have stab super effective attacks against granbull, which was apparently a popular choice on showdown as one of the only fairies in this dark rich environment.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Ability: Compound eyes
-sticky web
-thunder
-bug buzz
-volt switch
Weavile @ expert belt (I wanted life orb on my kabutops, and I think the ice punch/knock off/low kick combination grants super-effective coverage against most of the spooks)
Ability: Pressure
-Fake Out
-Ice Punch
-Knock Off
-Brick Break
Aegislash @ weakness policy
Ability: Stance change
-Shadow Ball
-Flash Cannon
-Wide Guard
-King's shield
Muk @ Assault Vest
Ability: Poison touch
-Gunk Shot
-Shadow Sneak
-Brick Break
-Ice Punch
Volcarona @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Flame Body
-Heat Wave
-Bug Buzz
-Quiver Dance
-Protect
Kabutops @ Life Orb
Ability: Weak armor
-Rock Slide
-Aqua Jet
-Waterfall
-Night Slash
I probably made some flawed decisions here. But I aesthetically like all of these guys.
Basic gameplan is to usually lead with galvantula and weavile. Focus sash and fake out try to keep galvantula alive long enough to setup sticky web. Then go down swinging with special attacks or volt switching galvantula out.
I'll chose my other two based on what I suspect will be most effective against my opponent's team.
Kabutops looks like he'll hurt a lot of things when outspeeding opponents. I think most who are trying to use him are using him as a swift swimmer on a rain team. I'm hoping sticky web slows the opponent down enough for him to outspeed them. Weak armor can boost his speed too.
Muk has some bulk to him and should shrug off special attacks. He's got good coverage with his Ice/Fighting/poison/ghost attacks. He can poison anything with any attack, which is nice. He should live long enough to ice punch a dragon or flier, or gunk shot granbull.
Volcarona becomes pretty scary if I can setup one quiver dance. There are a lot of dark types for bug buzz to hit too.
Aegislash. Yep. He's still good.
I'm sure some more synergistic teams will run circles around me, but I think this is ok.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Spooky battles have begun!
I got wreckt in my first two fights, but scored my first win in my third fight.
RNG was on my side. Galvantula scored two back-to-back critical hits with Thunder. (although I don't think that zubat would have survived a regular thunder. I not sure what they were doing with a Zubat on their team though)
S4LW-WWWW-WW2V-Y6NE
I haven't done online battling before, so this is my first online win
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I thought I had until tomorrow to make a team, looks like I am gonna have to throw something together tonight. Worst case scenario I can use my ghost team from last year + a few extra odds and ends I have that are allowed and just jump right on in. The benefit of having ridiculous amounts of Pokemon bred and trained, I suppose.
Let's Plays of Japanese Games
8FKG-WWWW-WW2V-YDEU
I'm pretty sure I misplayed using sticky web at all. I probably shouldn't use that against what looks like trick room teams. I also don't understand why his golurk tried to dynamic punch his confagrigus. Misclick?
edit:
Called it a night after 10 matches. 6 wins, 4 losses. My last match was a loss against a trick room team. I'm still getting used to what are trick room setters to recognize a trick room team going in. I think practically every ghost in the meta can learn trick room though... At this point I'm just going to assume any team packing Golurk is a trick room team and my priority 1 is "Forget sticky web. Gank Golurk's partner."
Highlight of the evening is when a lunatone put my Galvantula to sleep. The enemy mostly ignored it for awhile after that. Then suddenly Galvantula woke up and OHKO'd one of their guys with a critical STAB thunder.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I also realized that I made a critical mistake when I both chose Kabutops as my counter to Volcarona and decided to give it a Life Orb.
I foolishly was thinking "Yeah, kabutops has 4x resistance to fire. He'll definitely survive to hit. Then the life orb will make him more damaging against the rest of the opposing team, and he can rampage with sticky web slowing them down." I should have done my homework and realized that Smogon advises a lot of people to run Giga Drain on their Volcaronas. Volcarona outspeeds kabutops with zero speed boosts, and a single quiver dance negates the effect of sticky web. So it can outspeed and kill my kabutops with a giga drain before I can KO it with rock slide.
I think what I SHOULD have done is:
A: Given my kabutops a choice scarf to increase the odds of me outspeeding the volcarona.
B: Given the kabutops a focus sash to increase the likelihood of it surviving to rockslide the target.
B: Used something that outspeeds volcarona with zero speedboosts. I was considering Basculin or Sharpedo, but now upon closer inspection both of them are also slightly slower than Volcarona.
C: Used something that less obviously has a high powered rock attack, and preferably is capable of surviving a boosted heat wave.
edit:
Ahaha. Just had my first opponent rage quit. It might have had something to do with Ice Punch successfully freezing his Aegislash. (Ice punch had targeted his gliscor, but he swapped into aegislash). I also think he expected his gliscor to be more tanky and awesome, and my Muk's Ice Punch for 4x super effective took him by surprise.
Muk and Galvantula have been pretty great. A lot of people haven't been throwing much hate towards galvantula. I guess they're not appreciating how much damage STAB Bug Buzz does to their dark types, or how much his accurate STAB Thunders inflict to most other things.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
This is what getting better at Pokemon looks like, for reference.
I've been working early and late at work the past few days so I haven't had extra time to breed, but I have practically half a box of Pokemon eligible for this competition, so I will probably just throw some of them together. Would have been fun for me to finally make my dream Marowak team, though.
Let's Plays of Japanese Games
Hmm. Perhaps. I'll keep that in mind for next time. Muk certainly has enough bulk to survive punching a couple of times in a row most of the time. It would give me an option to recover from an intimidator switching in. Brick break has managed to OHKO several dark types so far. My team is sort of locked in stone now though. The attack has been super useful both on Muk and Weavile. I think it would come down to how frequently does Brick Break fail to OHKO or put the opponent in range of the teammate to finish off?
If I'm doing my math right, two back-to-back power up punches would have a combined power of 100 (40 + (40*1.5)). While two brick-breaks would have a combined power of 150. Would that 150 be wasted on overkill? Can I actually successfully get back-to-back power up punches onto a target? Muk can probably survive to do so, but there are a lot of ghosts in the spooky meta. If my opponent sees me power-up-punching to boost myself, they might be able to safely switchout their dark type for one of their ghosts.
I do sort of wish that I had tried to give my Muk minimum speed IV's. Muk is slow. He's not going to be outspeeding anyone. He's probably not going to outspeed anyone with sticky web up. But he is outspeeding the deliberately slow pokemon on trick room teams. Since Muk in practice isn't outspeeding anyone under normal conditions, it might have been nice to have someone who ends up getting combat priority in the event my opponent sets up trick room.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I am dying to know!
Update and more detailed team info in the spoilers. Note that this team was thrown together from Pokemon I already had, and thus has some pretty significant weaknesses, though I did fiddle around with movesets before locking in to the competition so it wasn't so bad. I didn't have much time to battle this weekend, so only managed to go 3-1.
Heat Wave / Bug Buzz / Protect / Quiver Dance
I like Volcarona a lot. It can take a hit and can dish a lot of damage out. I mean a LOT. This thing is a beast, and bulldozes through unprepared teams. I should have run Giga Drain over Quiver Dance to help with Rotom-Wash, though Quiver Dance did help in one battle.
Gengar / Timid / Focus Sash
Dazzling Gleam / Shadow Ball / Icy Wind / Protect
Dazzling Gleam went over Will O Wisp because of an expected prevalence of Dark types in the tournament, though I didn't see them all that often. It still managed to OHKO a Hydreigon, though. Icy Wind continues to be one of my favorite moves. I'm still marvelling at Gengar's movepool- it's obscene how many options this Pokemon has!
Gliscor / Impish / Toxic Orb / Poison Heal
Rock Slide / Earthquake / Protect / Tailwind
I wasn't sure about Gliscor going in, but coming out, I am in love with it again. It doesn't get too much damage off, though with its speed and bulk, it was more about Tailwind support and getting fast Rock Slides off in hopes of flinching my opponent and wrecking opposing Volcarona. Rock Slide is a fantastic move.
Hydreigon / Modest / Choice Specs
Dark Pulse / Draco Meteor / Fire Blast / Earth Power
I should have run Choice Scarf on this. I just never felt confident enough in terms of it's bulk to bring it out- it was 50/50 on OHKO'ing my opponent and being knocked out before it got a chance to attack. Perhaps when I am a better player and can predict when I will be able to Icy Wind / Tailwind this will be an effective set for me, but not now.
Weavile / Jolly / Pressure / Life Orb
Knock Off / Icicle Crash / Fake Out / Low Kick
My MVP. I was nervous running it without Protect, and it lead to a few harrowing scenarios, but it was easily my top performer. It has the right combination of speed and strength to pull through battles, and if it can't get the OHKO, Knock Off was able to at least bring opponent's down a few notches.
Sableye / Careful / Prankster / Rocky Helmet
Knock Off / Will-O-Wisp / Recover / Taunt
More experienced with Sableye in Singles play, where I've had this set demolish unprepared teams before, and it managed to play some mind games with my opponents in this tournament, too. Will-O-Wisp destroys physical attackers, Taunt stops many Pokemon in their tracks (including fellow Sableye, though the speed tie is scary). I wanted to run Protect on here, but figured that Prankster Recover might be more useful, though still not sure if it was a good idea. Knock Off is in case I get taunted, and just to provide additional damage/support.
Pokemon.com released a LOT of regional top-8 teams over the weekend and I think my next move might be to breed one and then see how it performs. Play around with what the "pros" use, so to speak.
Let's Plays of Japanese Games
My final tally was 18 matches. 10 wins, 8 losses. A barely positive W/L ratio, but still positive so I'm happy. Is there a place I can look up my final rating? It was 15##...I didn't climb much higher than the 1500 it started me at.
I really liked Galvantula. I felt that a lot of people didn't appreciate the threat it could be. He had a pretty large special attack and his STAB bug-buzzes were super-effective against a large percentage of the field. His high accuracy STAB thunders hit like a truck against most everything else. My opponents didn't really seem too prioritize killing him, and he frequently went unattacked until he managed to get at least one thunder off. I sort of felt that my focus sash was wasted on him since nobody focus fired him as the round started. Maybe a red card would have been better to force people to swap something in to the sticky web once they realized that "oh, STAB thunder actually hurts ALOT."
Galvantula also got really lucky and scored me WAY more critical hits than he should have. I swear he must have scored like 6-7 crits. A critical STAB thunder really throws a wrench in an opponent's plan.
One time I paired Galvantula with Volcarona as my lead. I think my opponent opened with Hydregion and Crobat as his lead. Galvantula got a free kill on his crobat because they focused 100% of their firepower at my Volcarona (who opened with Protect).
Trick room teams gave me a lot of trouble. It really sucked when I failed to identify a team as a trick-room team and wasted a turn casting sticky web.
Hydregion was EVERYWHERE. I probably should have had more things that could reliably take him out. I swear 80% of the teams I faced had him. Volcarona showed up a fair bit, but kabutops did a respectable job taking it out. I still wish I would have had the sense of mind to give my kabutops a choice scarf to help guarantee that it lands a rockslide against volcarona.
Weavile did a lot of work for me, but people did recognize it and threw a lot of hate his way. If I were to makeup the team again, I would have given the kabutops the choice scarf and given the life orb to weavile. Weavile's so fragile that I don't think the lifeloss would have mattered much. But weavile one-shot a lot of things and maimed many others. The ice/dark/fighting coverage of knock-off, ice punch, and brick break gave him super-effective options against most things I went up against.
Muk was awesome too. He was my ace in the hole against fairies (particularly Granbull). He was also just all around really bulky. I was satisfied with his movepool. Gunkshot/ice punch/brick break/shadow sneak gave him good coverage. Maybe power-up punch would have been more effective, but he wasn't fast enough to outspeed things even with sticky web down. Brick break worked fine for me. I do wish I would have tried to give him 0 speed IVs. I don't think he stood any chance of outspeeding anyone under any circumstance, so I might as well have had him as someone who could potentially outspeed my opponent's trick room. I don't know. Maybe that's foolish, but that's what I would have tried if I did it again.
I didn't use my aegislash much. A lot of the teams looked like they had things that might really threaten ghosts (go figure, amirite?). Although I think I threw some people for a loop when I refused to use king's shield. First attack connects. The next turn nobody attacks aegislash because "obviously I'm going to king's shield." Then I hit them with a flash cannon. Surely I wouldn't be stupid enough to have my slow aegislash go three turns in a row without using king's shield to protect it? Apparently I am. Enjoy your flash cannon.
I really liked Volcarona too. I mostly just used it to mop up stragglers with heat waves. I probably should have led with it more often. Then I would have been in a win/win position where either I successfully setup sticky web with galvantula or volcarona successfully sets up with a quiver dance. Such a leading duo would have been obliterated by a rockslide though. It might have been worth it to open like that most of the time.
It was fun. I'm looking forward to trying to put together another team for the next event. Didn't someone say it was supposed to be in November and they're excluding the most heavily used pokemon from the previous events? That will be interesting.
I'll probably try to stick to the same basic gameplan with a sticky web galvantula (I don't think galvantula is in fear of being too heavily used. I like the little bug. I realized that it reminds me of the Tachikoma's from Ghost in the Shell. Reminiscent of spiders, but not enough legs). I definitely need to do my homework and find a way to deal with trick rooms though.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I like the little guy. I guess this means I need to think harder about what I should do next month.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
Some levels are nearly impossible to beat without items. Gotta spend those coins on something.
OH GOD I HATE THIS SHIT FUCK
is it an in-store wifi distribution thing, or a card with a code? If it's the latter, could anyone be so nice as to getting one for me? Pretty please with a bow on top?
$$$
Im guessing it'll be over wifi. Less effort to make it work everywhere.
PM or @ me when the event is happening and I'll get you a code if they're cards.
This is easily the worst method for distribution ever.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I've been playing nearly every day trying to beef up the strongest pokemon, and even with the best team, I can't go back and beat it without spending coins on items.
At least earning coins is easy. Just keep playing the Meowth stage with pokemon that don't delete the coins, and work towards making a line of 5 coins before winning. After a few tries, you'll get the hang of where best to try lining up the 5 coins and about how much you want to deal damage between Meowth giving you more coins.
So, with that, earning 530 coins each time, spending a couple thousand on items will only really end up costing you a few hearts to earn the coins back (without having to spend actual money on jewels).
With the jewels, I don't spend them. I save them up until I have 12 and then redeem them for the 48k coins. Haven't spend a penny on the game yet, and I'm enjoying the levels so far.
Beat the main stages and just working on the Expert levels...haven't quite gotten them all yet.
Yelling at butts will never NOT be funny. Thanks, Psy!
Also, Abby is awesome. Keep up with TLH because it's the tits!
I love League of Legends, but seriously...screw you, Teemo.
Hearthstone - Webber #1330
3DS: 0920-3235-4071
S-ranking the Mega levels is great, but I just like that I can earn jewels from them. In actuality, nothing gained and nothing lost, but I feel like I'm "sticking it to the man" by not paying actual money into the game.
*nothing gained and nothing lost because I'm eventually spending more coins than the jewels could give, but spending coins that I was just making without other reasons to spend them was just as gainful. *shrug*
Yelling at butts will never NOT be funny. Thanks, Psy!
Also, Abby is awesome. Keep up with TLH because it's the tits!
I love League of Legends, but seriously...screw you, Teemo.
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
But you can only run the Meowth stages once a day and only on weekends. It's so painful.
I did, however, get Articuno finally. So I'm making way way through the Expert stages right now as I can't stand looking at Mega Gengar's stupid face any more. Hell I couldn't beat regular Gengar without using items.
No, you can run Meowth's regular stage (37) as often as you want.
Switch - SW-7373-3669-3011
Fuck Joe Manchin
If it has free wifi (standard at McDonalds, even those in the middle of nowhere), it has a Nintendo Zone.
Wait............ WAAIT. He drops as many coins as when he's the weekend or is it fewer?
e: nope, only has 3 coins on the map. I guess it's better than nothing.