I am a train. I will just run on the tracks.
Actually, I'm kind of stuck en route here. The good kind of stuck, I suppose, like when you have two girls fighting over you or you don't know which job offer to take and which to politely decline. I guess as far as I'm concerned because if one dumps me or I take one job and it turns out I don't like it, I can always go crawling back to the other, which will accept me readily after enough crawling.
This is what I'm talking about:
Whimsicott (M) @Focus Sash ** ♣
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 4HP/252Def/252SpD
Nature: Careful
~ Taunt
~ Charm
~ Worry Seed
~ Memento
Drapion (M) @ Black Sludge ** DRAPULA
Ability: Battle Armor
EVs: 252HP/56Def/196SpD/4Spe
Nature: Careful
~ Crunch
~ Acupressure
~ Substitute
~ Rest
Latias (F) @ Choice Scarf ** Dr. Paula
EVs: 252HP/172Def/84Spe
Nature: Timid
~ Trick
~ Thunderwave
~ Charm
~ Flash
Team Drapula II with Garchomp was great, but in Gen IV has its flaws. As Peterko pointed out, Garchomp doesn't own the Subway like it did the Tower, since speed is so much more important in the tower. When I was using TDII to see if it was good enough to deal with the Trick nerf, I had some success but managed to lose a completely-setup-Garchomp to two different Legendary teams. While they were rather isolated incidents in hindsight, both times were to Musketeer-Musketeer, and nine of 12 are faster than Garchomp. That wouldnt be so bad if the Musketeers weren't seemingly created as counter-Pokémon to Drapion:
- All three resist Crunch, Cobalion with a quad resist
- Enough of them have set-up moves to bother Drapion
- 11 of 12 outspeed Drapion (relatively minor but not guaranteed, as besides Cobalion 2 the other two that don't outpace Chomp sit at 128 speed to Drapion's 116)
- Justified boosts Attack
- Sacred Swords negates Defense and Evasion boosts
So yeah, those two escapades were enough to let me want to try Whimsicott, as I'd mentioned I wanted to last year when "Erufuun" and "Mischievous Heart" were first revealed. I was actually able to win one of those battles, since the Virizion that cleaned up the suddenly Subless, 65% Garchomp with a CH Leaf Blade after Terrakion CCed Chomp's sub away was not the SD or Taunt variants that would have destroyed the last-poke Drapion (Jolly Sacred Sword does under 37.5%, you do the math). But that was enough to tell me I could go back to the drawing board in search of the "best team".
Yes, "could go back". More often than not, theorymonning is a hell of a lot more fun than playing, especially in my case having used TDII for serious Tower-Frontier-Subway battles for thousands of battles in a row. I didn't see it as a knock on my team—I gladly used my cherished SSS (CCC) team from Emerald (CB Sala/CM Cune/Curselax) in Pearl, suspecting it wouldn't in Gen IV be the powerhouse it was in the generation prior, and this was the same deal. The one thing that stopped me from going with my "probable BW BS team" was the fact that having two pokes weak to ground when Workers who specialize in Ground can't be paralyzed and are very prone to using setup moves that will prompt a switch to other pokes that can't be paralyzed.
But I knew Whimsicott had a ton of potential, and so I enjoyed theorymonning (then RNGing, which is somewhat less enjoyable but still fun when you get what you want) for weeks until I arrived at what I felt is the perfect team. I believe I have, so allow me to explain.
Taunt. I've been raving about this move since 2004, when it was certainly on whatever moveset my Skarmory had. I wish it were still 3-5 turns as it was last Gen, but it's better than the two turns it was in Adv so oh well. So in my experiences in the Subway leading with Mesprit, and seeing just how many fucking idiots led with Curse or Hail or Dragon Dance or Toxic or whatever dumb shit that would prompt a switch (and not always the next turn, as has been mentioned earlier in this thread), I wanted to Taunt said idiots so bad and make them hit me if they were just gonna pussy out and switch. Even now with tricking into Electric move and switching in Garchomp, as Chinese Dood pointed out. It obviously isn't the end of the world to lead with a Trickscarf Poke, as evidenced by Peterko, but Whimsicott's ability was just begging for a workout.
So I figured: why not actually go with a one-attack team? I'm operating under the "assumption" that Drapion got worlds better from Gen IV. Basically the single most important thing it wanted was the ability to use Acupressure behind its Sub—I wouldn't even have wanted 60 more base points in HP to work with instead of that un-nerfing. Only something weird like a typing change would pique my interest instead of the Sub-Acu un-nerfing, and even then we have to keep in mind that in BW there are now only seven types that hit everything with no immunities: Dark, Ice, Dragon, Rock, Flying, Bug and Steel. So I wouldn't even necessarily want something like a Water/Ground Drapion with the same base stats and the Gen IV Acu-Sub nerf even if Water Absorbers could probably be worked around (I would try something like Cross Poison if I were feeling adventurous but Drapion doesn't get stronger Physical STAB than Crunch). The way it is now, I had confidence that Drapion could handle everything, with the proper support. It can beat the feared Musketeers when it's set up, it can outstall Scrafty and luckyass Barrier/Rest Glaceon if it has to and have the PP to beat a third poke, and it can finally pad its own stats if the first poke dies after only about 10 Acupressures. And hell, if down 1-3, Whirlwind Skarmory can't even do anything (not that Drapion can actually lose to that anyway).
So I explored the option of a non-lead Trick poke. Latias won out because after much research, those four moves (Trick/TW/Charm/Flash) were the most important, given what I felt were Whimsicott's most important moves. Yes, Whimsicott gets Switcheroo and the 100% accurate Cotton Spore, and Lati@s learns interesting stuff like Mirror Type and Wish and Memento (Latios) to take the stead of Trick/TW if necessary, but the way I have it set up now seems to be best. Here is how most battles go:
1. AI sends out something stupid
2. Whimsicott tells it to fuck off with priority Taunt
3. Stupid foe pokemon can't use dumb status move after the Taunt
4. Whimsicott used Memento, Foe's Atk/SpA drop -2 each
5. Latias comes in, uses Trick
6. Foe is forced to poke the fuck up (where "poke" is equivalent to "man") and use an attacking move
7. Taunt wears off but it's too late
8. Latias plays the recently maligned "cripple-things-for-one-teammate-to-sweep" role till she gets bored or faints (from boredom, yeah, lol)
9. Drapula uses win without giving a shit about anything
You can hopefully see how effective this can be, particularly Drapion itself...especially Zacchaeus, lol, who I am pretty sure I have used Drapion more than! Drapion itself is worlds better than it was in Gen IV, if you think otherwise "you're using it wrong".
The biggest issue is how. fucking. boring this is to use...for me anyway. I mean especially from my perspective, please think about it: by the time I get to Step 6, the vast majority of the time I, with my humbly admitted fuckton of experience with trick teams and the Tower/Frontier/Subway, know the battle is over. Over. Like, hey SPIT Starmie (Starmie 4, Surf/Psy/IB/TB), I know you are awesome and I love you to death forever, but if I know it's you leading, the battle is 100% over the second I see you, because I InstaMemento, paralyze you with Latias, and tap somewhere in the upper-right-hand corner of my touch screen to both send out Drapion and spam Acupressure, knowing that the best you can do with -2 Timid Surf is 22%. Yet I have to spend a good six minutes extra "proving" that, 8-10 if I'm driving, and it's the biggest rolleyes ever. It's not like if one of you had come up with this and could experience the refreshing reward of having your idea amaze you and play out to wild, "kind-of-imaginable-especially-after-jump's-posts-about-drapion-but still semi-unimaginable" success.
So somewhere in the midst of playing out another battle I knew I'd secured a good two minutes prior, I started to wonder: where is my gen V StarTarChomp (SPIT Star/DD Lum Tyra/ScarfChomp)? Is there really no speed team that is fast and good enough to compromise with the better Team Drapula III? As you guys may have guessed, I have somewhat less time to play than I once did, so the prospect of dragging myself through 10-minute battles was not that appealing to me. So I theorymonned long and hard about what that team could be. I tried quite a few things before finally coming up with this:
Latios (M) @Life Orb ** unban me
EVs: 4HP/252SpA/252Spe
Nature: Timid
~ Dragon Pulse
~ Psyshock
~ Ice Beam
~ Thunderbolt
Suicune @Leftovers ** Holy Water
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252HP/252Def/4Spe
Nature: Bold
~ Scald
~ Icy Wind
~ Calm Mind
~ Rest
Terrakion @Wide Lens ** Prudential
EVs: 4HP/25Atk/252Spe
Nature: Jolly
~ Close Combat
~ Rock Slide
~ Substitute
~ Swords Dance
You are a station where I don't stop. I will just pass you by.
This team is faster than a speeding bullet train, more powerful than a locomotive, and, I believe, able to leap tall records in a single unbeaten bound. Every single move is perfect, every effort value perfectly placed, and I still shake my head at how amazing these three are. I originally didn't want to post until I got to 338 but I guess I was enough of a dick to Peterko last gen that I don't have to do the same thing again. Mainly some of you have started posting ideas I've had for weeks if not months and I wanted to spill sooner rather than later, lol. Plus this will make it more suspenseful and that's always fun right? "Let's just say" I'm somewhere between 49 and 337, and I have 100%, absolutely no, NO problem using this team for hundreds of battles.
First, the synergy. Lati@s/Terrakion is quite a tandem, with Latios drawing Dark moves to activate Terrakion's Justified. More intriguing, though, is the fact that Latios resists a whopping five of Terrakion's six weaknesses (only missing Steel while getting Fighting, Psychic, Grass, Ground and Water). I knew I wanted two fast, heavy hitters that weren't exactly frail, and boy do these two fit the bill.
Second, "Latios is amazing". When deciding that Starmie didn't quiet synergize with something defensively enough to be the lead car on a real beast of a train, I opted to give Latios another look. The prospect of Life Orb recoil ending your streak in a 0-0 "draw" now gone, I had tried it on Starmie (Timid) to great success, and had Haxorus and Cobalion to "synergize" with it. Obviously Dragon resists Electric and Grass and Cobalion easily gets the other three types Starmie is weak to, and the three get everything but Ground and Flying as a team (and I had Shuca on Cobalion). But things like TR Cofagrigus and lead Jolteon made this team somewhat shaky...and then add in the fact that Naive Cobalion (RNGed with HP Ice 70 for some reason, was my first BW RNG lol) just wasn't strong enough to kill the things it should no matter how perfect its typing is. Things like Max HP Regice and Max HP Scrafty did not fall to 142 attack CC, leaving the rest of my team scrambling as -1Def/SpD Cobalion fell to pokes it "should have" owned. And as much as I tried to justify the real reason I wanted to try that team (Adamant DD Haxorus is the biggest beast ever after one turn of setup, at +1 it outpaces Thundurus AND outdamages its +2 Timid Thunderbolt), the team wasn't working out.
Latios did work out, on paper anyway. The age-old debate is Starmie's faster speed and "better" dual-STAB vs. Latios's 30 extra base SpA points, Dragon typing and "don't-overlook-me" 110 base SpD. The reason this works so much better than it even seems on paper is that, as touched upon in the last page or so, Latios makes better use of Life Orb than ever before, not just with the no-recoil death thing. Basically, you DP everything that's not weak to boltbeam or your Psychic move, right? Well, the fact that virtually everything that resists DP will also resist your Psychic move is the entire reason Psyshock, on Latios, is hands-down the better move.
As Peterko said and I found out a while back as I calced it myself before making my first move, Psyshock always OHKOes min/min Jolteon. That is almost enough to sell it right there, but consider this: what poke is best poised to take Psyshock but not Psychic and make trouble for the team? Conkeldurr (Weezing isn't exactly a threat). Well guess what: Latios OHKOes Conkeldurr 2-4 every time and doesn't give a shit about the first one that will Bulk Up at like 20% or whatever. Life Orb itself finally won me over, as it notches key KOs that EB Latios (or Starmie) couldn't: like Exeggutor which all die to IB (and "threatens" Suicune/Terrakion if only by type matchup)...Feraligatr 4, which always dies to TB and would be a dick to face if Latios left it at 5% HP or whatever, and effectively a +4 Waterfall (DD, Liechi, and Torrent) and +2 Crunch...Cryogonal, half of which die to Psyshock. It even owns CM Chandelure, doing 52% with Shock while Chandy CMes, only to die the next turn as Latios again targets Defense and does not give a shit about the SpD boost.
You get it. You also probably get Terrakion without too much explanation, though I will point out that Wide Lens serves the dual purpose of making "the worst move in Advance" usable and granting Terrakion immunity from the bullshit of Brightpowder and Lax Incense with regard to CC (except on BP Mismagius but what is that going to do with no real attacks someone tell it to poke the fuck up please). Doesn't fully negate Snow Cloak or Sand Veil but Suicune doesn't necessarily have a big problem with those anyway, especially Snow Cloak. The biggest surprise for me is how effective Sub is—I had it on from a previous team idea, and was just a few A-presses from replacing it with X-Scissor to better deal with Psychics like the Slow twins and I guess Gothitelle, but an honest look at Psychic made me think otherwise. Gallade and Medicham are both OHKOed by +2 CC, Jynx is a bitch who got 99 problems but Wide Lens Rock Slide's accuracy ain't one (or is it, you get the reference and I'm fully aware Jynx takes a trillion percent from CC but I don't like dropping defenses for nothing), Starmie, Espeon and Zam are all very likely faster and can OHKO. Sub lets me set up on idiots who want to try statusing my Sub repeatedly, and basically always allows for a quick win when the situation presents itself.
Last but not least...Holy Water. This is hands down the most reliable self-sufficient, team player Pokémon I've ever used. Scald is an absolute goddishsend—when I saw on bulbapedia reading randomly about freeze status that it actually thawed freeze, I basically immediately went to go rebreed Maybelline, my Adv Milotic. I don't know why I didn't think of Suicune first (the EB Latios/Milotic/Cobalion experiment I tried was eventually trashed by the Timid Balloon Shadow Ball Raikou that isn't 2HKOed by DP), but I'm glad it occurred to me again! As I've said in past Tower/Frontier threads, I swear by Icy Wind, and with the speed-obsessive Subway, ensuring that Latios and Terrakion will be able to dish out a heavy blow should Suicune die (Latios and Terrakion hit 14-of-17 types for SE, missing only Electric, Ghost and Psychic) is a gigantic safety net.
But Holy Water doesn't even need that net most of the time. I can't count how many times Suicune has been able to get to at least +3, stalling the shit out of just about everything with Pressure and "you can't even 3HKO me with the five EQs you have, Jolly Garchomp" Defenses. Suicune has been CHed quite a bit in my exploits but it really takes two back-to-back to put it out of commission. And Scald does not discriminate in its burning hatred of everything that can't absorb how Holy Suicune is—I've beaten pokes like Ferrothorn and Cresselia without worrying one bit. Finally, of significant importance as well is stopping DD Gyarados just as it did in Advance. Yes, a +2 IB is enough to 2-3HKO but there are times when Suicune will be unboosted. I will not lose to Gyarados because it DDed and outsped my team after taking a +2 IB from a like 40% Suicune.
All in all, words. You missed me, didn't you? Fire away with comments and questions cause I missed you fanatics too...
(big ups to Depot Agent Ramses, you crazy philosophical bastard you)