Congrats! This is awesome; I'm so glad you stuck with it (and, more importantly, that it paid off! Losing at 1975 or something would have suuucked).You know that feeling when you're fully motivated to chase down that top record?
You check if all your Pokémon are holding the right items one last time before you talk to the receptionist who welcomes you to the Battle Maison. Next you select your format of choice and almost end up with X Pokémon from your Battle Box which is part of a 6 vs. 6 Wi-Fi team, because you're so eager to start your streak. From that point forward the game is on. You know most of the Maison sets, know the weak spots of your team and most importantly, you've theorymonned multiple situations against bad match-up's in order to figure out a way to keep momentum and have the upper hand. Then your streak starts and you're doing extremely well. You plow your way through the first 50 battles and start setting goals for yourself (100, 200, 300, 400, 500..). You keep achieving your goals because you play flawless and the top record starts whispering in your ears (catch me, catch me), until this happens;
Battle #559 Vs. Pokémon Ranger Willow (Slowbro/Clawitzer/Starmie/Walrein);
WCFW-WWWW-WWXM-JGMB
Arguably, I should have taken out the Clawitzer first but I don't feel like I have to assume I'm going to miss three times with 95% accurate moves (Lax Insense), and get OHKO'd three straight turns right after. The ''Walrein roll'' was a 2.7% chance of happening and that isn't even factoring in the multiple misses against it due to Lax Insense. My streak brutally ends as my greatest nemesis decides my time has come and I'm back at the bottom.
''Started from the bottom now we're here''
Luckily, I'm a stubborn motherfucker so I figure ''hey, it's not gonna pull that shit against me a second time'' So we go back to the receptionist who welcomes me to the Battle Maison. I plow my way through the first 50 battles and start setting goals for myself (100, 200, 300, 400, 500). I keep achieving my goals because I play flawless and the top record starts whispering in my ears (catch me, catch me), and ''I've gotta catch 'em all'';
After 6,000+ battles with the same team I think I can safely say that I've faced almost every possible match-up the AI could throw at me; the best, the worst, the ''I don't care'' ones and the ''please don't'' ones. I've seen 5 straight Rock Slide flinches, first turn OHKO's on Dusclops, Blizzard freezes, Swagger confusions, random Taunts, Quick Claw rampages, 6 straight paralysis, but also dual Explosion leads, Dig + Earthquake combo's, Synchronized Will-O-Wisps and more. During this run I've managed to improvise, adapt and overcome them all, leading to another milestone for Doubles; 2,000 straight wins.
==========================
Battle Maison Super Doubles 2,000 straight wins (ongoing);
Dusclops (F) @ Evliote ** Redrum
Nature: Relaxed
Trait: Frisk
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/00
EVs: 252 HP/126 Def/132 Sp.Def
Lv. 50 stats: 147/90/273/71/250/27
Moveset: Trick Room/Foresight/Night Shade/Brick Break
Trick Room;
Trick Room twists the dimensions which is needed to make use of the most effective and deadliest Maison Doubles strategy to date; sweeping the AI with a level 1 Aron and a bulky, hard hitting back-up. By using Trick Rooom and relatively slow Pokémon, speed EVs can be shifted to HP, Defense and Special Defense which allows those slow Pokémon to become incredibly bulky, and Aron to move first on anything without priority moves/items.
Foresight;
Foresight allows Aron to hit Ghost types which is one of the most annoying type for Trick Room teams. Foresight also ''ignores'' Double Team users who try to stall, and allows Kangaskhan to wreck havoc with Fake Out / Double-Edge after Mega evolving.
Night Shade;
Night Shade deals consistant damage which is ideal for a Pokémon with only base 90 Attack, uninvested. Night Shade takes out every non Sitrus Berry Pokémon after a full HP Endeavor from Aron. The only real downside of Night Shade is being unable to hit Normal types.
Brick Break;
Brick Break allows Dusclops to take out Normal types who've been hit by Endeavor. It also ensures to take down Rampardos2 and Rampardos4 after Sitrus Berry activation, which is crucial given that it may have Mold Breaker. Bastiodon4 also falls to Endeavor + Brick Break despite of Sitrus Berry, although it isn't a real threat bar Rock Slide flinches.
''Redrum'' is a reference to Stephen King's ''The Shining'', which is murder spelled backwards.
Aron (M) @ Berry Juice ** Mithril
Nature: Adamant
Trait: Sturdy
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
EVs: Zero
Lv. 1 stats: 12/6/7/4/6/5
Moveset: Endeavor/Toxic/Swagger/Protect
Endeavor;
Endeavor brings down the targeted Pokémon to 12 or 1 HP, depending on the condition of Aron. This allows me to take out the AI's Pokémon fairly easy with a combination of Endeavor + Night Shade/Brick Break, or even Fake Out/Mach Punch from my back-up.
Toxic;
Toxic is mainly used when facing dual Ghosts or Stall sets and probably 95% of the time when I face Cofagrigus, which removes Sturdy would I have Foresighted it with Dusclops. Spiritomb deserves special mention given that it likes to Sucker Punch Aron, and one of the sets has Substitute.
Swagger;
Swagger sounds like a filler move and while I have to admit that it isn't used much, it really, really isn't a filler move. It is by far better than Stealth Rock/Sleep Talk/Screech or Rain Dance/Sunny Day, unless you run Pokémon that benefit from the latter two. If you don't believe me I'd invite you to watch this battle video from the 1,296 run: AY5W-WWWW-WWWN-YNWH.
Protect;
Protect is mandatory as it allows Aron to go through turn 1 unscattered while Dusclops sets up Trick Room. Since Aron works like a magnet, Protect sees quite a lot of play in later turns, especially when I need to Foresight a Ghost type or to avoid damage from priority moves / twist the dimensions again.
''Mithril'' is a reference to J.R.R. Tolkien's ''Lord of the Ring's''. Mithril is a metal which is stronger than steel but light as a feather.
Kangaskhan (F) @ Kangaskhanite ** Broadway
Nature: Brave
Trait: Scrappy/Parental Bond
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/00
EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk/6 Sp.Def
Lv. 50 (mega) stats: 212/194/120/77/121/94
Moveset: Fake Out/Double-Edge/Drain Punch/Sucker Punch
Fake Out;
Fake Out is one of the top 5 moves for Maison Doubles and combined with Scrappy/Parental Bond the main reason why I use Kangaskhan. Fake Out reaches a Base Power of 90 (!!) after Mega Evolving thanks to Parental Bond, guaranteeing that the targeted Pokémon will not strike back that turn, with a few exceptions aside (Inner Focus etc). The best part isn't actually the amount of damage it does after Mega Evolution, but the privilege of flinching Ghost types thanks to Scrappy. Consider Mega Kangaskhan for all your Doubles teams for the sole fact that it has access to Fake Out.
Double-Edge;
Double-Edge has pros and cons when comparing it with Return. Double-Edge, (in combination with Night Shade) allows Mega Kangaskhan to OHKO a lot of the AI's Pokémon at the cost of (heavy) recoil. Given that Kangaskhan usually moves before the AI and that Dusclops + Aron do most of the work, I really prefer Double-Edge over Return for critical situations, were Kangaskhan needs to deal as much damage as possible.
Drain Punch;
Drain Punch used to be Rock Slide during the 1,748 and 1,296 runs and was slashed in after I lost to Cradily because Walrein4 screwed me over. Drain Punch allows Kangskhan to restore HP lost from Double-Edge recoil or general damage received from the AI. While a Super Effective Drain Punch deals less damage than a (non resisted) Double-Edge, it is the better option against things that are in KO range to create durability for Kangaskhan.
Sucker Punch;
Sucker Punch deals with Ghost types which can be considered a threat to the team given that Dusclops has to Forrsight them first for Mega Kangaskhan to hit them otherwise. However, the main reason I run Sucker Punch (and not Crunch) is the fact that it has priority. Sucker Punch helps in situations were the AI outslows Kangaskhan during Trick Room, or outspeeds her when Trick Room isn't up (anymore).
Sucker Punch provides great coverage with Drain Punch, while the few Pokémon who'm resist the combination all fall to Double-Edge.
''Broadway is reference to nothing, really.''
Conkeldurr (M) @ Assault Vest ** Undisputed
Nature: Brave
Trait: Iron Fist
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/00
EVs: 108 HP/252 Atk/6 Def/144 Sp.Def
Lv. 50 stats: 194/211/116/75/154/45
Moveset: Drain Punch/Knock Off/Ice Punch/Mach Punch
Drain Punch;
Drain Punch is Conkeldurr's strongest accurate move that comes with no drawbacks, but heals it instead. Thanks to Iron Fist, Drain Punch reaches a Base Power of 146 which is incredibly strong.
Knock Off;
Knock Off received an amazing boost in Generation 6 and is one of the best moves for a Fighting type, thanks to it's secondary effect and movetype. Given that all Maison Pokémon have a held item, Knock Off has a Base Power of 97, most of the time.
Ice Punch;
Ice Punch deals with Grass and Flying types, while being boosted by Iron Fist. It provides great coverage for the team in general and OHKO's Pokémon like Landorus/Torterra/Hawlucha.
Mach Punch;
Mach Punch is a great priority move which helps against weakened mons when Trick Room has ran out. It is also boosted by Iron Fist, meaning that it reaches a decent Base Power (78), with priority. Conkeldurr's stats distribution and it's movepool make it the best (non mega) Trick Room attacker out there.
''Undisputed'' is a reference to the film series called ''Undisputed'', which is about the best prison fighters in the world.
==========================
If you were to ask me if I'm going to continue this streak; for now, I won't.
The last ~700 battles have been quite stressful as the slightest misplay or hax would mean that I'd be back at zero without really acomplishing anything (I already had the record so the goal was 2,000).
And besides, having the top record which is still live feels pretty great (doesn't it, VaporeonIce ? ^^).
Another reason why I probably won't play for a while is the battle sessions I've done in the past few weeks, which I'll spoiler-post beneath. Quite a few of these sessions are insane for my standards and actually something I'd frown upon would someone post such logs. The reason for these sessions however is that I feel like my play get's better if the session is longer. I've had the feeling during this whole streak that I've been completely able to predict and outpredict Artificial Intelligence.
Here's the log:
Battles: 2.000
Battle Points: 13.894
Rare Candy's: 289
Amount of days: 21
Amount of hours: ~ 100
Average battles per day: 95
Average hours per day: ~ 4.8
Average Battle Points per day: 662
Date / Start / Finish / (Amount)
25-2: 0 - 75 (75)
26-2: 75 - 125 (50)
27-2: 125 - 135 (10)
28-2: 135 - 200 (65)
01-3: 200 - 250 (50)
06-3: 250 - 325 (75)
07-3: 325 - 540 (215)
08-3: 540 - 655 (115)
09-3: 655 - 805 (150)
10-3: 805 - 923 (118)
11-3: 923 - 1.005 (82)
12-3: 1.005 - 1.045 (40)
13-3: 1.045 - 1.120 (75)
14-3: 1.120 - 1.347 (227)
15-3: 1.347 - 1.555 (208)
16-3: 1.555 - 1.695 (140)
17-3: 1.695 - 1.822 (127)
18-3: 1.822 - 1.880 (58)
19-3: 1.880 - 1.905 (25)
20-3: 1.905 - 1.953 (48)
21-3: 1.954 - 2.000 (47)
Then there was that one battle against Aurorus/???/Machamp/Armaldo which I almost lost.
Truth be told, for some reason I do not remember the ??? Pokémon and because my heart rate was going through the roof I ended up not saving the battle video, but I did keep a chatlog between me and turskain from #BattleMaison on SynIRC (people should check that channel out more often!). Aurorus had Snow Warning which made me lose Aron on turn 1 or 2 (perhaps the mystery Pokémon was a priority user which would mean I lost Aron on turn 1 because in such situations I open with Trick Room + Endeavor over Trick Room + Protect, but I honestly do not remember). Anyway, here's the log:
22:05 Eppie: Judgement day
22:05 Eppie: Choice Band Armaldo's Stone Edge vs Kangaskhan-Mega (Critical Hit) (205 - 243 HP) Damage: 96.7% - 114.62% | 81.25% Chance to OHKO
22:05 Eppie: If it hits and crits I'm out
22:06 Eppie: didn't happen
22:07 Eppie: Stone Edhe hitting, critting and knocking 100% mega kang out is 4.1%
22:07 Eppie: fuck I forgot to save the video
22:07 turska: it was locked into stone edge?
22:08 Eppie: yes
22:08 Eppie: dusclops/conk/kang vs. armaldo/machamp
22:08 Eppie: conk drain punched and dusclops night shaded armaldo before that CC took down conk
22:08 Eppie: armaldo KO'd dusclops with stone edge
22:09 Eppie: then it was kang vs 15% armaldo + 30% machamp (-1 defense)
22:09 Eppie: was forced to fake out machamp
22:09 Eppie: since CC would've been clean 1hKO
22:09 Eppie: god, should've saved that video
22:11 Eppie: 1/25 times I lose that one
22:12 Eppie: that calc was the crit calc btw
22:12 Eppie: 64.15% - 76.42% without crit
22:12 Eppie: I was scared it may knock me out without needing a crit
22:12 Eppie: like 1/16 or so
22:12 turska: is that right? stone edge has an elevated crit rate, right
22:12 turska: so it'd be a 1/8 CH chance
22:12 Eppie: good you mention that
22:13 Eppie: that means 8.2%
22:13 Eppie: 1/12 times I lose
Thank you for reading.
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Battle Maison Discussion & Records
- Thread starter NoCheese
- Start date
Pokemon may have any of their abilities (including unreleased hidden ones). Preliminary data suggests that on Pokemon with two regular abilities and one hidden one, odds are 1/3 each, while for Pokemon with one regular ability and one hidden one, the odds are 2/3 for the regular ability and 1/3 for the hidden one.
I've updated the thread through here. Congrats to Eppie on cracking 2000 in doubles. That's quite the Maison achievement!!
In less happy news, we're starting to bump up against the character limit in the leaderboard post. When I have a bit more time, I'll probably have to move some posts around and split the rules and resources into a separate post from the leaderboard, while consolidating a separate first page post with a later one to avoid throwing off the post numbers for streak links. In short, expect some minor changes to the first page of this thread soon.
Continued good luck with the streaks all!
In less happy news, we're starting to bump up against the character limit in the leaderboard post. When I have a bit more time, I'll probably have to move some posts around and split the rules and resources into a separate post from the leaderboard, while consolidating a separate first page post with a later one to avoid throwing off the post numbers for streak links. In short, expect some minor changes to the first page of this thread soon.
Continued good luck with the streaks all!
I dunno which is more annoying- the fact that Rivalry Haxorus3 OHKOd my Slowbro with CH Outrage, with the opposite gender penalty factored in; or that the Showdown calc has no option for Rivalry with gender input so I can see just how poor the odds were of that happening. No message on entry, meaning no Mold Breaker or Unnerve.
As it stands, neutral Outrage could have only dealt 87% max, a total of 166 HP.
Slowbro has 189 HP and 144 Def (148 HP, 108 Def with Sassy), and with the Rivalry penalty factored in I'm suspicious that the mother fucker needed both the crit plus an extremely high damage roll to do the job.
What also annoys me is that I had an Aron in play; the AI to my knowledge doesn't consider the possibility of crits when selecting targets, so Haxorus could have opted to use any of its other three moves to destroy Aron, yet it picked the one that randomized the target. It would have known that Outrage neutered by Rivalry wouldn't have killed Slowbro under normal circumstances.
As it stands, neutral Outrage could have only dealt 87% max, a total of 166 HP.
Slowbro has 189 HP and 144 Def (148 HP, 108 Def with Sassy), and with the Rivalry penalty factored in I'm suspicious that the mother fucker needed both the crit plus an extremely high damage roll to do the job.
What also annoys me is that I had an Aron in play; the AI to my knowledge doesn't consider the possibility of crits when selecting targets, so Haxorus could have opted to use any of its other three moves to destroy Aron, yet it picked the one that randomized the target. It would have known that Outrage neutered by Rivalry wouldn't have killed Slowbro under normal circumstances.
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Hmm that's strange. A Rivalry-penalized Outrage would be at 90 base power, and with the given spreads,
252 Atk Choice Band Haxorus 90 BP Outrage vs. 148 HP / 108 Def Slowbro on a critical hit: 157-186 (83 - 98.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Unless something is wrong with my math?
252 Atk Choice Band Haxorus 90 BP Outrage vs. 148 HP / 108 Def Slowbro on a critical hit: 157-186 (83 - 98.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Unless something is wrong with my math?
I have long suspected Showdown contained some rounding error somewhere in its level 50 calcs. Now I'm sure of it.
Damage = [(2*Level+10)/250*Attack/Defense*Base+2]*(STAB*Type*Critical*other*rand[0.85,1])
(2*Level+10)/250 = 0.44
Attack/Defense = 199/144*1.5 (Choice Band) = 199/96 (Does not reduce further.)
Base = 90
First Bracketed Term = 84.0875
STAB = 1.5
Type = 1
Critical = 1.5
other = 1
rand = 1
Second Bracketed Term = 2.25
Final result = 189.196 (truncated to 189)
An exact OHKO. Needed the crit and the top damage roll. A 0.39% chance.
I have no idea where Showdown is getting 186 from. Moving the Choice Band 1.5 multiplier over to the second term (in the "other" term, as an item multiplier) actually increases the max damage, to 191. (And snags 189 on the 0.99 damage roll, doubling the overall chance of OHKO to 2/256, or 1/128. I sometimes wonder if this behavior changed at some point and no one noticed.) Simply truncating the first term to 84.00 still results in a final damage of 189. (In fact, it becomes 189 flat.) Starting from 0.84 and going up to 0.99 on the random damage roll produces a range from 158-187 - still (critically) misreporting the impossibility of a OHKO, but brings us to within "I forgot to add the two" territory.
The only way I can conjure up that 186 is if I change the +2 inside the first bracket to a +1, which yields 186.946, truncates to 186, but the 0.85 damage roll there is 158.90, truncates to 158, which is still larger than that 157 Showdown is reporting. In fact, I can't see any way to produce a range from 157-186, because 186*0.85 = 158.1.
So either I fundamentally misunderstand the damage formula, or Showdown is running some flawed code for level 50.
Given that I can produce a result which concurs with a data point from ReptoAbysmal, I'm guessing it's the latter. But feel free to prove me wrong.
Edit: So I'm looking at Showdown's javascript, and I am just absolutely baffled as to why they implemented it this way, and I still can't find how they're coming up with the values they're coming up with. They Floor values way more than they should, but they still wind up with 84 for the first term, and then they handle all the mods in Hex, but I don't see them unwrapping that Hex value into Decimal anywhere, so it may very well be that it handles everything in Hex and unwraps it when writing to the page, so that all the extra floor steps actually killed their accuracy and that 84 is really being stored as an 83. But I still can't find their random range generator, so I still don't know how they wound up with 157-186.
It's all very confusing, and I can't help but think it's unnecessarily complicated because it's written in javascript instead of a real language.
Damage = [(2*Level+10)/250*Attack/Defense*Base+2]*(STAB*Type*Critical*other*rand[0.85,1])
(2*Level+10)/250 = 0.44
Attack/Defense = 199/144*1.5 (Choice Band) = 199/96 (Does not reduce further.)
Base = 90
First Bracketed Term = 84.0875
STAB = 1.5
Type = 1
Critical = 1.5
other = 1
rand = 1
Second Bracketed Term = 2.25
Final result = 189.196 (truncated to 189)
An exact OHKO. Needed the crit and the top damage roll. A 0.39% chance.
I have no idea where Showdown is getting 186 from. Moving the Choice Band 1.5 multiplier over to the second term (in the "other" term, as an item multiplier) actually increases the max damage, to 191. (And snags 189 on the 0.99 damage roll, doubling the overall chance of OHKO to 2/256, or 1/128. I sometimes wonder if this behavior changed at some point and no one noticed.) Simply truncating the first term to 84.00 still results in a final damage of 189. (In fact, it becomes 189 flat.) Starting from 0.84 and going up to 0.99 on the random damage roll produces a range from 158-187 - still (critically) misreporting the impossibility of a OHKO, but brings us to within "I forgot to add the two" territory.
The only way I can conjure up that 186 is if I change the +2 inside the first bracket to a +1, which yields 186.946, truncates to 186, but the 0.85 damage roll there is 158.90, truncates to 158, which is still larger than that 157 Showdown is reporting. In fact, I can't see any way to produce a range from 157-186, because 186*0.85 = 158.1.
So either I fundamentally misunderstand the damage formula, or Showdown is running some flawed code for level 50.
Given that I can produce a result which concurs with a data point from ReptoAbysmal, I'm guessing it's the latter. But feel free to prove me wrong.
Edit: So I'm looking at Showdown's javascript, and I am just absolutely baffled as to why they implemented it this way, and I still can't find how they're coming up with the values they're coming up with. They Floor values way more than they should, but they still wind up with 84 for the first term, and then they handle all the mods in Hex, but I don't see them unwrapping that Hex value into Decimal anywhere, so it may very well be that it handles everything in Hex and unwraps it when writing to the page, so that all the extra floor steps actually killed their accuracy and that 84 is really being stored as an 83. But I still can't find their random range generator, so I still don't know how they wound up with 157-186.
It's all very confusing, and I can't help but think it's unnecessarily complicated because it's written in javascript instead of a real language.
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Haaaaxxorruuuuusssss!!
Thanks for going to the trouble of actually running the numbers. I guess I'd rather be screwed by poor odds earlier than if I'd actually taken that team into the triple digits, but then Slowbro's demise was incurred by a pokemon that can't be encountered past 40 regardless.
Playing with Aron is a pretty good learning experience as it pertains to studying the AI. Not so much the magnetism toward Aron when its partners are so bulky, which everyone knows by now; rather, seeing many pokes with damaging moves but prominent status ailment-centric movesets, who not only will forego smacking Aron to use said status, be it Swagger or Thunder Wave, but target less discriminately. Often they'd use those moves on Slowbro if they could.
While I do sincerely doubt the AI factors the potential for crits into its decision making, having seen pokes use bad moves seemingly just because their best move won't OHKO, I believe the AI considers potential OHKOs just as viable as guaranteed ones. There were occasions where an enemy passed on Aron but left the target with low red HP, leading me to believe they got a lower damage roll. This probably isn't news to anyone, but until now I wasn't sure if the AI primarily checked for guaranteed OHKOs, since most calcs I'd run that plan for such a thing WERE in fact assured OHKOs.
I've never used Aron before until now, and I gotta say, there's a certain comfort in knowing that, priority moves aside, Aron gets to go before everything. EVERYTHING. And as NoCheese well knows, when its partner is a Mega Camerupt with its lovely horrendous base 20 speed and an incredibly powerful STAB spread move, things that normally wall the hell out of that STAB are a non-issue, as Camerupt can still inflict a measly 12 (at worst) HP damage to those targets. Sitrus Berries occasionally give a bigger chunk to remove, but problems with those are few and far between.
That team also introduced me to the not so situational benefit of Slowbro learning Flamethrower, which when backed by Aron's Sunny Day, allow it to easily remove the Escavaliers and Abomasnows which Slowbro hates seeing (and may not be within range of Eruption.) There are a lot of things Slowbro murders with sun-boosted Flamethrower and no investment, actually, but those two are among the more prominent threats. I try to use Sunny Day sparingly, though, since the rest of the team neither takes advantage of it nor directly benefits from it (water damage halving aside.)
Thanks for going to the trouble of actually running the numbers. I guess I'd rather be screwed by poor odds earlier than if I'd actually taken that team into the triple digits, but then Slowbro's demise was incurred by a pokemon that can't be encountered past 40 regardless.
Playing with Aron is a pretty good learning experience as it pertains to studying the AI. Not so much the magnetism toward Aron when its partners are so bulky, which everyone knows by now; rather, seeing many pokes with damaging moves but prominent status ailment-centric movesets, who not only will forego smacking Aron to use said status, be it Swagger or Thunder Wave, but target less discriminately. Often they'd use those moves on Slowbro if they could.
While I do sincerely doubt the AI factors the potential for crits into its decision making, having seen pokes use bad moves seemingly just because their best move won't OHKO, I believe the AI considers potential OHKOs just as viable as guaranteed ones. There were occasions where an enemy passed on Aron but left the target with low red HP, leading me to believe they got a lower damage roll. This probably isn't news to anyone, but until now I wasn't sure if the AI primarily checked for guaranteed OHKOs, since most calcs I'd run that plan for such a thing WERE in fact assured OHKOs.
I've never used Aron before until now, and I gotta say, there's a certain comfort in knowing that, priority moves aside, Aron gets to go before everything. EVERYTHING. And as NoCheese well knows, when its partner is a Mega Camerupt with its lovely horrendous base 20 speed and an incredibly powerful STAB spread move, things that normally wall the hell out of that STAB are a non-issue, as Camerupt can still inflict a measly 12 (at worst) HP damage to those targets. Sitrus Berries occasionally give a bigger chunk to remove, but problems with those are few and far between.
That team also introduced me to the not so situational benefit of Slowbro learning Flamethrower, which when backed by Aron's Sunny Day, allow it to easily remove the Escavaliers and Abomasnows which Slowbro hates seeing (and may not be within range of Eruption.) There are a lot of things Slowbro murders with sun-boosted Flamethrower and no investment, actually, but those two are among the more prominent threats. I try to use Sunny Day sparingly, though, since the rest of the team neither takes advantage of it nor directly benefits from it (water damage halving aside.)
TIL: Slowbro can learn Flamethrower.
faith_grins division in the damage formula truncates the value, and the damage is rounded (with 0.5 rounded down) after modifiers like stab are applied. so you shouldn't simply the formula the way you have, since for example /5/50 is not necessarily the same as /250 when done this way. what the showdown calc is doing for this situation is:
((((2 × Level) ÷ 5 + 2) * BasePower * [Sp]Atk) ÷ [Sp]Def) ÷ 50 + 2
(2*50)/5=20 (would truncate if needed)
20+2=22
22*90=1980
1980*298=590040
590040/144=4097.5 (truncated)
4097/50=81.94 (truncated)
81+2=83
critical hit mod is applied:
83*1.5=124.5 (rounded down)
then the damage variance:
124*rand(85...100)/100
124*85/100=105.4 (rounded down), min
124*100/100=124, max
and lastly stab:
105*1.5=157.5 (truncated to 157), min
124*1.5=186, max
granted, i don't know what's going with ReptoAbysmal's slowbro dying anyways. honestly my first thought is misreading haxorus' gender, but failing that, it might be possible that the division rounds instead of truncates now, which would yield 189 as a max damage value. still, it seems hard to believe that even a minor change in the damage formula like this would go this long unnoticed into gen 6.
((((2 × Level) ÷ 5 + 2) * BasePower * [Sp]Atk) ÷ [Sp]Def) ÷ 50 + 2
(2*50)/5=20 (would truncate if needed)
20+2=22
22*90=1980
1980*298=590040
590040/144=4097.5 (truncated)
4097/50=81.94 (truncated)
81+2=83
critical hit mod is applied:
83*1.5=124.5 (rounded down)
then the damage variance:
124*rand(85...100)/100
124*85/100=105.4 (rounded down), min
124*100/100=124, max
and lastly stab:
105*1.5=157.5 (truncated to 157), min
124*1.5=186, max
granted, i don't know what's going with ReptoAbysmal's slowbro dying anyways. honestly my first thought is misreading haxorus' gender, but failing that, it might be possible that the division rounds instead of truncates now, which would yield 189 as a max damage value. still, it seems hard to believe that even a minor change in the damage formula like this would go this long unnoticed into gen 6.
GameFreak still uses integer division? What is this, 1990?
The gender was the first thing I checked when Slowbro fainted. Haxorus was male; this particular Slowbro was female.
I can also assure you that it had Rivalry, as it entered without a message. Playing with an Aron, I was making sure to note anything that could have Mold Breaker. Fortunately Unnerve also provides a warning on entry. Without Rivalry, a crit would have easily netted a kill.
I can also assure you that it had Rivalry, as it entered without a message. Playing with an Aron, I was making sure to note anything that could have Mold Breaker. Fortunately Unnerve also provides a warning on entry. Without Rivalry, a crit would have easily netted a kill.
I'm currently working on a super triples team how does it look
Life Orb modest volt absorb
Volt switch
Nasty plot
Discharge
HP ice
4hp\252Spa\252spe
Choice Specs modest levitate
Volt switch
Thunderbolt
HP water
Discharge
36hp\4def\248spa\4spd\216spe
Focus sash timid protean
Matblock
Ice beam
Dark pulse
Grass knot
4hp\4def\252spa\4spd\244spe
Sitrus berry quiet stance change
Wide guard
Shadow ball
Flash cannon
Kings shield
252hp\252spa\4spd
Choice Band intimidate adamant
Earthquake
Super power
Knockoff
Uturn
4hp\252atk\252spe
@Lucarionite inner focus modest
Aura sphere
Flash cannon
Vacuum wave
Protect
???????
Any suggestions would
Be great!
Life Orb modest volt absorb
Volt switch
Nasty plot
Discharge
HP ice
4hp\252Spa\252spe
Choice Specs modest levitate
Volt switch
Thunderbolt
HP water
Discharge
36hp\4def\248spa\4spd\216spe
Focus sash timid protean
Matblock
Ice beam
Dark pulse
Grass knot
4hp\4def\252spa\4spd\244spe
Sitrus berry quiet stance change
Wide guard
Shadow ball
Flash cannon
Kings shield
252hp\252spa\4spd
Choice Band intimidate adamant
Earthquake
Super power
Knockoff
Uturn
4hp\252atk\252spe
@Lucarionite inner focus modest
Aura sphere
Flash cannon
Vacuum wave
Protect
???????
Any suggestions would
Be great!
I'd replace Thunderus-T with regular Thunderus and throw Taunt somewhere in there. Currently, you only have Greninja's Dark Pulse to deal with enemy trick room setters. Discharge is also iffy with only one electric immunity, and you probably won't have time to set up a Nasty Plot.
I brought the Aron team to 60 wins earlier before deciding to stop, and pondering some things between then and now, I don't think the team really has the capacity to reach a highly remarkable streak; not with Slowbro as a setter, anyway, at least without a Fake Out lead.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 148 HP / 252+ SpD Slowbro: 212-252 (112.1 - 133.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Escavalier Megahorn vs. 148 HP / 108 Def Slowbro: 194-230 (102.6 - 121.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 148 HP / 252+ SpD Slowbro: 186-222 (98.4 - 117.4%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Head Smash vs. 144 HP / 108 Def Slowbro: 168-198 (89.3 - 105.3%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
Just a few of the things that immediately came to mind. All of these were encountered at some point between battles 31-60 in the #3 enemy position, which meant they could target Slowbro and off him right then and there, but they opted to go after Aron instead. Which was nothing but pure luck, since waters in the #1 or 2 slot had no problem passing on Aron to take a shot at Camerupt instead, which wasn't an issue either way.
There's also the butt-clenching scenario of lead TR setters. While it only happened once in 60 battles, a lead Slowbro opted to use TR instead of attacking Aron, which meant I needed a second turn (as well as hoping it didn't attempt it again.) While I ended up winning that battle easily for a number of reasons, that scenario has to occur again at some point and would be much uglier.
While all teams have various inevitable awful matchups and perfect storms which result from any really specific combination, just having a Serperior or Thundurus pop up in a bad spot with Veterans and Rangers being "really" common is enough to persuade me to just go back to randoms, as I typically don't use teams for this long due to boredom. I'm also not terribly interested in building a Dusclops, who doesn't really share the various issues Slowbro has (though loses incredibly valuable Taunt immunity, and Electrode4 usually doesn't open with an attack... at least not in the many occasions I fought it with this team.)
While Hariyama could patch some of those issues up, not leading with M-Camerupt would also severely inhibit the team's ability to sweep. Hell, it would probably be more worth my while to use a lv1 Sableye so it could Fake Out and then get itself killed to bring in Camerupt, but eh, I don't want to breed yet another Sableye either, even if I wouldn't have to train it =P
That said, the team IS fun to use, and so long as Slowbro is able to set TR, things like Hail and priority have not been terribly effective in killing the strategy, so I think I'll ride the team out anyway and see how far it can go. It'll prolly also be my method for quickly reaching battle 41 in the future.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 148 HP / 252+ SpD Slowbro: 212-252 (112.1 - 133.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Escavalier Megahorn vs. 148 HP / 108 Def Slowbro: 194-230 (102.6 - 121.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 148 HP / 252+ SpD Slowbro: 186-222 (98.4 - 117.4%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Head Smash vs. 144 HP / 108 Def Slowbro: 168-198 (89.3 - 105.3%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
Just a few of the things that immediately came to mind. All of these were encountered at some point between battles 31-60 in the #3 enemy position, which meant they could target Slowbro and off him right then and there, but they opted to go after Aron instead. Which was nothing but pure luck, since waters in the #1 or 2 slot had no problem passing on Aron to take a shot at Camerupt instead, which wasn't an issue either way.
There's also the butt-clenching scenario of lead TR setters. While it only happened once in 60 battles, a lead Slowbro opted to use TR instead of attacking Aron, which meant I needed a second turn (as well as hoping it didn't attempt it again.) While I ended up winning that battle easily for a number of reasons, that scenario has to occur again at some point and would be much uglier.
While all teams have various inevitable awful matchups and perfect storms which result from any really specific combination, just having a Serperior or Thundurus pop up in a bad spot with Veterans and Rangers being "really" common is enough to persuade me to just go back to randoms, as I typically don't use teams for this long due to boredom. I'm also not terribly interested in building a Dusclops, who doesn't really share the various issues Slowbro has (though loses incredibly valuable Taunt immunity, and Electrode4 usually doesn't open with an attack... at least not in the many occasions I fought it with this team.)
While Hariyama could patch some of those issues up, not leading with M-Camerupt would also severely inhibit the team's ability to sweep. Hell, it would probably be more worth my while to use a lv1 Sableye so it could Fake Out and then get itself killed to bring in Camerupt, but eh, I don't want to breed yet another Sableye either, even if I wouldn't have to train it =P
That said, the team IS fun to use, and so long as Slowbro is able to set TR, things like Hail and priority have not been terribly effective in killing the strategy, so I think I'll ride the team out anyway and see how far it can go. It'll prolly also be my method for quickly reaching battle 41 in the future.
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Thanks for the help. Do you know what nature regular thundurus runs. Because I just caught a modest one with 31\xx\30\31\30\31 without HP ice so I might have to rethink that. Do yo have any recommendations for way to get past TR. I thought Aegislsh was a good check to tr teams. I'm also thinking about a 12hp\252spa\244spe since mega lucarios max speed neutral nature is 164 which doesn't out speed anything new compared to 163 except hax 1,3,4
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Aegislash is unique as a slow mon because it's actually not all that slow (minimum 58 speed gets out-slowed by quite a few Trick Room mons), and it actually likes going second to tank its hit in Shield Form. It's also weak to the many Ghost and Dark coverage moves Trick Roomers carry. You can beat Trick Room either by KOing the user (difficult as many of them are quite bulky), Taunting the user (although Slowthings and Aromatisse can be immune to Taunt), using priority when Trick Room is up (Talonflame or Sucker Punch MegaKhan are great here), using a slow, tanky mon of your own (several other users have used Gastrodon to great effect), or hoping to stall it out by careful use of Protect (the riskiest option).
I haven't used Thunderus-I in a Maison team yet, but I did theorymon a set with Thunderbolt/Dark Pulse/Grass Knot/Taunt which worked well in mock battles. Modest could work for the extra power, but you'd probably want Timid for max speed. Even so, max SpA and Speed Modest is decently fast and would hit quite hard.
I haven't used Thunderus-I in a Maison team yet, but I did theorymon a set with Thunderbolt/Dark Pulse/Grass Knot/Taunt which worked well in mock battles. Modest could work for the extra power, but you'd probably want Timid for max speed. Even so, max SpA and Speed Modest is decently fast and would hit quite hard.
Just remember: every puzzle has an answer. - Hershel Layton
Posting an ongoing streak of 1000 wins in ORAS Super Doubles.
#1000: WNLG-WWWW-WWXZ-DW6Z
I used Assault Vest Metagross and Togekiss. My train of thought was basically 'alright, I should probably use some bulky stuff because I can be double targeted so I should be able to survive that', so I searched my boxes for some bulky Pokemon that were known to be good in doubles and knew a spread move; I settled on Metagross and Togekiss. I made it through the regular doubles no problem but lost at 25 of the super doubles because I got swept by a Dragon Dance Feraligatr.
I used Rotom-W. Losing against Feraligatr honestly wasn't too surprising, because I already had a feeling the team would have trouble with Water-types and I had no coverage on them whatsoever (the Greninja set I used was Hydro Pump / Ice Beam / Extrasensory and Blaziken had Sky Uppercut for a Fighting STAB move lel). Togekiss turned out to suck anyway, so I set out to replace it with a flier (in order to pair better with Metagross's Earthquake) that could take care of most Water-types no problem: Rotom-W it was. I beat Evelyn and got to 89, where I lost because I misplayed against a Veteran.
I used Garchomp. I didn't really intend to replace Metagross, but I intended to complete multi with an irl friend and use this doubles team - however, he didn't have a Metagross, so I set out to find something that should fill Metagross's roll of bulky attacker/Earthquake user/Greninja switch option as well; Garchomp it was, and Garchomp actually turned out to be better than Metagross because of STAB on Earthquake and ability to use Protect. (In the end, I ended up beating multi with the AI anyway, lol). On a first run I lost at 105 because I was inexperienced, didn't consult the trainer lists, and didn't run Sash on Ninja - I lost against a Roller Skater when I failed to anticipate lead Scarfmory, which OHKOed Blaziken and the Fighting-type Greninja, and couldn't overcome this. On a second run, having swapped out most inaccurate moves on my leads, I reached 147, where I lost because I misplayed against Trick Room.
I used Clawitzer. I was unimpressed with Rotom-W's performance - its only accurate move was Thunderbolt (I couldn't RNG yet so I lacked a hex 30 Ditto for breeding HP Water without fucking up its SpA IV), its role was more 'don't die' than 'kill stuff', and Thunderbolt's coverage was mostly redundant with Greninja's Grass Knot and Ice Beam (or so I thought at least lol, f*** Gyarados) and I was paranoid of Trick Room, so I wanted a powerful Water-type Trick Room check - Clawitzer it was, especially since ReptoAbysmal had adviced me to try it on my triples team and I wanted to try it out somewhere. It performed fine, and this iteration got me a 159 win streak, where I lost to a Latios3/Cresselia3 lead because I was paranoid of Cress4 (and because that's a horrible matchup for any Greninziken anyway). This was the last iteration I posted about in this thread in remote detail and my best Greninziken record until now.
I used Hydreigon and Azumarill. I had lost a 298 streak in triples, it was too short before ORAS to try cranking out a new attempt in triples, so I retreated to the mountains - which is a fancy way of saying I started randomly playing some doubles on the train for the sole purpose of gaining more experience - I knew Greninziken had potential for more than 159, and I just wanted to play a reasonable bunch of games solely to really observe their weaknesses. The team I used was Greninja / Mega Blaziken / Hydreigon / Azumarill - which is essentially team Clockwork Angels without the center gears of Manectric / Talonflame. I knew their synergy was at least alright so I just went with it. It was... okay. Azumarill performed fine, my main complaints were with Hydreigon because my backups were lacking in the Speed department and it brought a huge Fairy weakness (couldn't hit them super effectively and once my leads were down Azumarill couldn't kill them first either because it's So Darn Slow.) I wasn't being really serious at it either so I lost a couple of streaks before the 100 mark, mostly because of screwups (e.g. not Protecting on Blaziken after Latios4 had Dragon Danced under Mat Block lol, causing me to get swept cleanly by its Earthquakes) or teams overflowing with fairies.
I used (Balloon) Aegislash. I threw it on over Hydreigon in order to solve the Fairy weakness while preserving the same great defensive synergy with Blaziken, but this caused my entire team to lose to Tentacruel4 one-on-one, which I very very soon discovered to be a pretty bad idea (I think I lost that streak at like 65 while I had swapped in Aegislash after the chatelaine battle lol). So I went back to Hydreigon and netted my best streak with this iteration, which was somewhere in the high 130s. It was then that my triples bone started tickling again and I realised I didn't *have to* complete that streak before ORAS's release, so I set out on what was to become that ejected 606 streak. As for doubles, I knew I should be searching more methodically for the appropriate backups. I knew it was time to stop fooling around.
So, uhm, yeah. Greninja / Mega Blaziken. What do we have here? Especially Mega Blaziken. A cool Pokemon. A fanboy favourite. Not an instant win button, however, in spite of shit like this:
252+ Atk Mega Blaziken Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zapdos: 151-178 (91.5 - 107.8%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
...lulz. No setup, no boosting item, neutral hit, naturally bulky target... but Zapdos1 has to pray to RNGsus if muh chicken aims and fires. Additionally, Fire / Fighting have pretty great coverage together, and Flare Blitz and Low Kick generally reach a high Base Power. Mega Blaziken is not without its flaws, though: it
-is pretty frail and has a less than stellar defensive typing
-is initially slow
-still can't OHKO everything on sight
Obviously, this can be remedied: its Speed problem is always fixed after turn 1 because of a godly, broken ability in Speed Boost, whereas some chip damage is enough to secure many more KOs - in other words, there are not many Pokemon that benefit so much from a single free turn as Mega Blaziken. Obviously, if there's one move that can provide that single free turn, it's Mat Block - which is where the best Pokemon in Maison doubles / triples comes in, in the form of Mat Block Greninja. As for Blaziken's frailty, that obviously doesn't matter that much if you have him kill everything before it kills him or have his partner do so – and again, there's none better than Greninja for this role, covering the shit out of Psychic-, Flying-, Water-, and Ground-types. With their astounding coverage and Blaziken's great power, together Greninja and Mega Blaziken 2HKO at worst like more than 90% of the maison.
That's basically Greninziken's offensive synergy in a nutshell – but of course it isn't perfect, nothing is. Both of them are really frail, and Greninja really isn't that strong, so bulky opponents, really fast opponents, dual typings and the like can slip between their coverage. On top of that, Blaziken's coverage movepool, put frankly, sucks – the only remotely useful options are Earthquake, Rock Slide, and Thunder Punch, of which Earthquake is undesirable with a grounded, non-Protect partner and has pretty redundant coverage with Fighting and Rock Slide and Thunder Punch are inaccurate and weak, respectively. (Rock Slide hits a bunch of targets four times super effectively and as such isn't that weak in practice.)
Of course, we can just play and notice empirically what opponents are particularly problematic – or we can approach it methodically and see what typings resist Blaziken's dual STAB and aren't hit super effectively by Greninja's standard set of Ice Beam / Grass Knot / Dark Pulse. These typings are few and far between, but in the Maison they're the following:
-Fire / Flying
-Water / Poison
-Water / Flying
Fire / Flying obviously comes down to Moltres, Charizard, and Talonflame. Fortunately Greninja outruns all three of them, granting Blaziken two chances at hitting them with Rock Slide – but obviously Rock Slide can and will miss, so you need a backup plan for Moltres and Charizard. Talonflame is worse, for obvious Gale Wings reasons; the standard play is to Protect on Blaziken turn one and attack it with Dark Pulse. It always uses Brave Bird on Blaziken, so if it moves before Greninja, you know it's Gale Wings – in which case you should switch out Blaziken to something that can take its Brave Bird as you have Greninja kill it. If it's Flame Body, do whatever lol.
Water / Poison is solely Tentacruel, which actually loses to Greninja and Mega Blaziken together, but that involves them slowly muscling through it in a last-mon situation; otherwise, Tentacruel just sits there being a huge pain in the ass with Protect and spreading Toxic and Surf, putting Greninja and Mega Blaziken under huge, undesirable pressure – you need a reliable answer to it in order not to be in huge trouble if the remainder of the opposing team is anywhere near decent.
Water / Flying is... awful. It's only one Pokemon you encounter on a regular basis:
889 | Gyarados4 | Careful | Chesto Berry | Dragon Dance | Aqua Tail | Earthquake | Rest | HP/SpD
...but then this happens:
252 SpA Protean Greninja Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gyarados: 64-76 (31.6 - 37.6%) -- 87.1% chance to 3HKO
-1 252+ Atk Mega Blaziken Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Gyarados: 68-80 (33.6 - 39.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Between Gyarados most likely having a partner that demands some attention, the inevitable Rock Slide miss, ChestoRest saying ‘lol cute damage bro', and the ease with which this monster gets out of control, Super Singles lead Greninja's archnemesis returns as what's basically Greninziken's Hurrrrrrnadus. It never gave me any real trouble in triples, though, for obvious Mega Manectric reasons, so an Electric-type or at least an Electric-type attack would make sense for the backups. In the Clawitzer run, I considered jumping through a bunch of hoops to get a Blaziken with Thunder Punch over Rock Slide for Gyarados coverage + perfect accuracy, but Thunder Punch is a rather unfortunate case in that it misses the KO on every single one of these targets (assuming Intimidate Gyara iirc), aka the only targets it's meant to hit – and when it comes down to it, I'd rather take a 90% to OHKO Moltres/Charizard over a 0% chance to do so. I even started considering Stone Edge on Garchomp for this sole target (whaaat...)
In addition to these threats, there are also a couple of things that resist Flare Blitz, are too light to be hit hard by Low Kick, and aren't hit hard by Greninja, which are generally a couple of Water-types such as Vaporeon4 (lol@Carbink). Now, what covers all these Pokemon? ...why, none other than the legendary HP Electric Gastrodon of course! That honestly was the first thing that came to mind, but I quickly shelved it because it outright lost to Talonflame and struggled against Gyarados of all things (needs Storm Drain boost to even 2HKO, admittedly this was before I had heard of Clear Smog on it). Approaching it more methodically, I listed all characteristics the desired backup should have:
-a strong Electric-type move (i.e. Thunderbolt) in order to easily dispatch of all listed problematic threats;
-a Flying resistance in order to comfortably switch in on Talonflame's Brave Bird;
-good natural bulk in order to function properly under Trick Room;
-a Ground immunity because you kinda need that with Blaziken's Earthquake weakness;
-preferably a base Speed of (positive-natured) 87 or (neutral-natured) 100 in order to outrun +1 Gyarados4;
-ideally a base Speed of outright >90 (for Moltres) or >100 (for Charizard), but whatever on this one really
...yeah that should be it. Sounds easy, right? ....well honestly, no. The first two points basically mandate an Electric-type, Ground-immune Electric-types are virtually nonexistent without resorting to Air Balloon, and I didn't really want to use Rotom-W because of its low Speed and horrible movepool (both getting outrun by +1 Gyarados and having to run HP Water as a secondary STAB move was too much really). I have nearly every main series game except the odd parallel version, and on all those games there was literally one Pokemon available that checked all the boxes: Zapdos.
(124 SpA Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gyarados: 204-240 (100.9 - 118.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO, yeaaah – and I obviously was planning on using more SpA anyway lol)
Fortunately I was gonna play through my friend's HG anyway in order to RNG Suicune (which I unfortunately had already caught on my SS before I learned RNG) as well as a few other legendaries, so I had the opportunity to get a flawless one on short notice. However, I obviously had only one chance to catch one, so I had to get its nature and Hidden Power right immediately – as such, I asked our resident genius turskain if Timid HP Ice -which I was planning on using- was the way to go. However, he recommended me to ditch Zapdos altogether and go with Thundurus-T instead, for a multitude of reasons:
-better offensive movepool; Zapdos's coverage movepool is basically limited to the highly iffy Heat Wave and super duper weak Hidden Power, whereas Thundurus trades Heat Wave for the extremely powerful Grass Knot as well as Dark Pulse and some niche shit like Psychic / Flash Cannon / Sludge Bomb if you feel like using that sort of thing;
-one extra Speed point; honestly, base 101 is just so much better than 100 it's just stupid;
-an Electric immunity; very, very much appreciated with a lead Greninja, especially that one time I faced an Electrode / Jolteon lead lol.
Zapdos's advantages over Thundurus-T are natural bulk, which can largely be patched up with a custom EV spread, and a better support movepool with Tailwind and Roost, which I wasn't planning on using anyway – who really needs Tailwind with Greninziken? turskain was right. Of course he was. Unfortunately, the only Thundurus I had was an imperfect one from Dream Radar. So I went to the game store, bought a used copy of White, got the requisite eight badges in like fifteen hours (that's fast for me, I'm not a speedrunner k), and another eight painstaking hours later (the first 6,5 of which were spent trying to hit a frame that was apparently rendered too awkward by the rain from the cutscene, honestly this was –well almost- as hard as breeding a Chansey on Emerald), I caught a flawless HP Ice Thundurus in only my third BW RNG (after a practise Volcarona on Black and Cobalion on White). After getting it transferred, I was all set for my third team member.
For my fourth team member, I followed my tried-and-true Maison doubles team building process:
-take a lead pair consisting of, preferably, a nuke and a supportive sniper;
-add a backup that covers most of their weaknesses;
-add Scizor.
...well obviously there was a little more to it than that, but Scizor was basically an immediate fit. I wanted a bulky-ish priority user, and Scizor was preferred over Conkeldurr and Azumarill because of its astouding defensive typing and because Conkeldurr seemed to have bad offensive synergy with Blaziken and Azumarill plays a much worse anti-counter game with Thundurus-T, with Scizor covering both of its weaknesses in Rock and Ice and Azumarill being a lot weaker and missing out on the more dangerous Ice.
That's it. Thundurus-T was a drain plug patching up all major and most minor holes the already super-powerful Greninziken had, and Scizor's awesome priority, bulk, power, and defensive typing added some much appreciated consistency and fall-back options. Without further ado:
By-Tor (Greninja) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Protean
Nature: Timid
IVs: 31/4-5/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
-Mat Block
-Dark Pulse
-Ice Beam
-Grass Knot
Greninja's standard set in Triples works great in Doubles as well, featuring a great offensive type in Ice Beam, its potentially most powerful move in Grass Knot, and an anti-TR move in Dark Pulse. Because Thundurus-T runs Grass Knot as well, I considered swapping it out for Scald before starting my streak, but I decided to stick with GK at first because I knew it was better in a vacuum – and it was around battle 300 that I thought ‘oh yeah I was supposed to see if Scald might be better than GK,' so I guess I didn't really miss Scald. Grass Knot is probably worth sticking with for Gastrodon if anything, because that one isn't hit hard by any other move and can get out of control rapidly, as well as its great power.
Flashheart (Blaziken) @ Blazikenite
Ability: Speed Boost
Nature: Adamant
IVs: 31/31/31/21-24/31/31
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
-Flare Blitz
-Low Kick
-Rock Slide
-Protect
Completely standard, with its most powerful and reliable STAB options and its least useless coverage option, as well as Protect, which works especially great in tandem with Speed Boost. Rock Slide is used considerably more in doubles than in triples so I expect to lose this streak a lot sooner than that one, but until now I've managed to get away with it because it's still got very specific targets and I've got a secondary check/backup plan to most of them....
Thundurus-T @ Choice Specs
Ability: Volt Absorb
Nature: Timid
IVs: 31/8/30/31/31/31
EVs: 164 HP / 8 Def / 84 SpA / 252 Spe
-Thunderbolt
-Grass Knot
-Dark Pulse
-Volt Switch
Gene (Scizor) @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
Nature: Adamant
IVs: 31/31/31/6-7/31/31
EVs: 212 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Spe
-Bullet Punch
-Bug Bite
-Superpower
-Protect
Again, completely standard set, with enough Speed to reach 91, right above the crowded 90 tier and nasties such as Lanturn4.
When I started using this team, I admittedly had forgotten how ridiculous Mega Blaziken's power is, but even then I never would have expected it to perform this well. I was aiming to beat my Mega Gardevoir / Weavile record and reach top 10 (which in the light of a few other streaks being ongoing came down to reaching 325+), which I already considered to be enough of a challenge considering my previous Greninziken records, and after reaching that I aimed for the 545+ required for a secure top 5 spot (again in the light of other ongoing streaks) – but even after reaching second place I had a hard time believing I might actually be on my way to 1000, especially considering how elusive a benchmark this is in doubles. This streak felt way more like the 810 singles streak than the 1001 (1015 now but w/e) triples streak – in the triples streak everything short of 1000 would have been an underperformance considering the team's potential, whereas I knew for both singles and doubles that the teams definitely were beatable but I maintained consistency and kept on somehow winning the difficult matchups, lucking out on a semi-regular basis, and avoiding that one /too/ difficult matchup. It's really really awkward standing among (or above ;_;) the giants on top of those leaderboards.
As for this streak, I don't like to leave stuff abandoned so I'll certainly wrap it up at some point, but I'm not sure how motivated I am right now. 1000 is already way, way more than I would have signed up for, and unlike in triples there are no reasonable targets ahead on the leaderboard (come on I'm not gonna beat Eppie, my luck just has to run out before then) - not to mention it might be smart to wait until somebody else (turskain???) hits 1000 because I seem to perform a lot better when I'm chasing something. The most satisfying part would be to have Greninziken *finally* play out their true potential, and no matter how far I'll end up bringing them, I hope I managed to do that. I don't have any other promising ongoing streaks right now (haven't touched singles since I lost, I lost rotations at 149 with an improved version of my X team because it's just way too vulnerable to crits and that was when the consecutive crits happened on Clefable - from what seemed to be a Super Luck Togekiss - and multi doesn't count), so I guess it's back to triples now. Whenever I get bored of the maison I seem to end up returning a week later and cranking out 100 battles per day (this streak was at 250-ish when I posted my triples streak and I resumed it last weekend) so idk when that will be, but whatever. I've got two ongoing 1000+ streak right now and that's kinda cool.
Thanks for reading, stay awesome, and good luck, everyone ^^
Posting an ongoing streak of 1000 wins in ORAS Super Doubles.
#1000: WNLG-WWWW-WWXZ-DW6Z
...alright, so I was wrong. Spectacularly badly wrong. Not touching Greninziken for about four-five months had kinda made me brutally underestimate them I guess, and I'm known to be bad at gauging this sort of thing properly (see my singles team), so yeah... idk what to say haha. I know I have improved since then, but even then simply using the right backups made way more of a difference than I could possibly fathom.
Continuing where this part of the story leaves off, here is the video I was talking about. I knew literally nothing about doubles, and when googling for some useful strategies I came across some gamefaqs thread that basically came down to 'Mat Block is broken' and this video, which is part of a series where the player wins all trophies (with an EV-trained in-game team ffs); for Doubles, he used Greninja / Mega Blaziken / Garchomp / Aegislash. I didn't want to copy this team outright because that's lame, but because I knew nothing I needed a starting point and Greninja / Mega Blaziken looked fun and hilariously powerful, so I stole that and set out to find appropriate backups.
I used Assault Vest Metagross and Togekiss. My train of thought was basically 'alright, I should probably use some bulky stuff because I can be double targeted so I should be able to survive that', so I searched my boxes for some bulky Pokemon that were known to be good in doubles and knew a spread move; I settled on Metagross and Togekiss. I made it through the regular doubles no problem but lost at 25 of the super doubles because I got swept by a Dragon Dance Feraligatr.
I used Rotom-W. Losing against Feraligatr honestly wasn't too surprising, because I already had a feeling the team would have trouble with Water-types and I had no coverage on them whatsoever (the Greninja set I used was Hydro Pump / Ice Beam / Extrasensory and Blaziken had Sky Uppercut for a Fighting STAB move lel). Togekiss turned out to suck anyway, so I set out to replace it with a flier (in order to pair better with Metagross's Earthquake) that could take care of most Water-types no problem: Rotom-W it was. I beat Evelyn and got to 89, where I lost because I misplayed against a Veteran.
I used Garchomp. I didn't really intend to replace Metagross, but I intended to complete multi with an irl friend and use this doubles team - however, he didn't have a Metagross, so I set out to find something that should fill Metagross's roll of bulky attacker/Earthquake user/Greninja switch option as well; Garchomp it was, and Garchomp actually turned out to be better than Metagross because of STAB on Earthquake and ability to use Protect. (In the end, I ended up beating multi with the AI anyway, lol). On a first run I lost at 105 because I was inexperienced, didn't consult the trainer lists, and didn't run Sash on Ninja - I lost against a Roller Skater when I failed to anticipate lead Scarfmory, which OHKOed Blaziken and the Fighting-type Greninja, and couldn't overcome this. On a second run, having swapped out most inaccurate moves on my leads, I reached 147, where I lost because I misplayed against Trick Room.
I used Clawitzer. I was unimpressed with Rotom-W's performance - its only accurate move was Thunderbolt (I couldn't RNG yet so I lacked a hex 30 Ditto for breeding HP Water without fucking up its SpA IV), its role was more 'don't die' than 'kill stuff', and Thunderbolt's coverage was mostly redundant with Greninja's Grass Knot and Ice Beam (or so I thought at least lol, f*** Gyarados) and I was paranoid of Trick Room, so I wanted a powerful Water-type Trick Room check - Clawitzer it was, especially since ReptoAbysmal had adviced me to try it on my triples team and I wanted to try it out somewhere. It performed fine, and this iteration got me a 159 win streak, where I lost to a Latios3/Cresselia3 lead because I was paranoid of Cress4 (and because that's a horrible matchup for any Greninziken anyway). This was the last iteration I posted about in this thread in remote detail and my best Greninziken record until now.
I used Hydreigon and Azumarill. I had lost a 298 streak in triples, it was too short before ORAS to try cranking out a new attempt in triples, so I retreated to the mountains - which is a fancy way of saying I started randomly playing some doubles on the train for the sole purpose of gaining more experience - I knew Greninziken had potential for more than 159, and I just wanted to play a reasonable bunch of games solely to really observe their weaknesses. The team I used was Greninja / Mega Blaziken / Hydreigon / Azumarill - which is essentially team Clockwork Angels without the center gears of Manectric / Talonflame. I knew their synergy was at least alright so I just went with it. It was... okay. Azumarill performed fine, my main complaints were with Hydreigon because my backups were lacking in the Speed department and it brought a huge Fairy weakness (couldn't hit them super effectively and once my leads were down Azumarill couldn't kill them first either because it's So Darn Slow.) I wasn't being really serious at it either so I lost a couple of streaks before the 100 mark, mostly because of screwups (e.g. not Protecting on Blaziken after Latios4 had Dragon Danced under Mat Block lol, causing me to get swept cleanly by its Earthquakes) or teams overflowing with fairies.
I used (Balloon) Aegislash. I threw it on over Hydreigon in order to solve the Fairy weakness while preserving the same great defensive synergy with Blaziken, but this caused my entire team to lose to Tentacruel4 one-on-one, which I very very soon discovered to be a pretty bad idea (I think I lost that streak at like 65 while I had swapped in Aegislash after the chatelaine battle lol). So I went back to Hydreigon and netted my best streak with this iteration, which was somewhere in the high 130s. It was then that my triples bone started tickling again and I realised I didn't *have to* complete that streak before ORAS's release, so I set out on what was to become that ejected 606 streak. As for doubles, I knew I should be searching more methodically for the appropriate backups. I knew it was time to stop fooling around.
So, uhm, yeah. Greninja / Mega Blaziken. What do we have here? Especially Mega Blaziken. A cool Pokemon. A fanboy favourite. Not an instant win button, however, in spite of shit like this:
252+ Atk Mega Blaziken Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zapdos: 151-178 (91.5 - 107.8%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
...lulz. No setup, no boosting item, neutral hit, naturally bulky target... but Zapdos1 has to pray to RNGsus if muh chicken aims and fires. Additionally, Fire / Fighting have pretty great coverage together, and Flare Blitz and Low Kick generally reach a high Base Power. Mega Blaziken is not without its flaws, though: it
-is pretty frail and has a less than stellar defensive typing
-is initially slow
-still can't OHKO everything on sight
Obviously, this can be remedied: its Speed problem is always fixed after turn 1 because of a godly, broken ability in Speed Boost, whereas some chip damage is enough to secure many more KOs - in other words, there are not many Pokemon that benefit so much from a single free turn as Mega Blaziken. Obviously, if there's one move that can provide that single free turn, it's Mat Block - which is where the best Pokemon in Maison doubles / triples comes in, in the form of Mat Block Greninja. As for Blaziken's frailty, that obviously doesn't matter that much if you have him kill everything before it kills him or have his partner do so – and again, there's none better than Greninja for this role, covering the shit out of Psychic-, Flying-, Water-, and Ground-types. With their astounding coverage and Blaziken's great power, together Greninja and Mega Blaziken 2HKO at worst like more than 90% of the maison.
That's basically Greninziken's offensive synergy in a nutshell – but of course it isn't perfect, nothing is. Both of them are really frail, and Greninja really isn't that strong, so bulky opponents, really fast opponents, dual typings and the like can slip between their coverage. On top of that, Blaziken's coverage movepool, put frankly, sucks – the only remotely useful options are Earthquake, Rock Slide, and Thunder Punch, of which Earthquake is undesirable with a grounded, non-Protect partner and has pretty redundant coverage with Fighting and Rock Slide and Thunder Punch are inaccurate and weak, respectively. (Rock Slide hits a bunch of targets four times super effectively and as such isn't that weak in practice.)
Of course, we can just play and notice empirically what opponents are particularly problematic – or we can approach it methodically and see what typings resist Blaziken's dual STAB and aren't hit super effectively by Greninja's standard set of Ice Beam / Grass Knot / Dark Pulse. These typings are few and far between, but in the Maison they're the following:
-Fire / Flying
-Water / Poison
-Water / Flying
Fire / Flying obviously comes down to Moltres, Charizard, and Talonflame. Fortunately Greninja outruns all three of them, granting Blaziken two chances at hitting them with Rock Slide – but obviously Rock Slide can and will miss, so you need a backup plan for Moltres and Charizard. Talonflame is worse, for obvious Gale Wings reasons; the standard play is to Protect on Blaziken turn one and attack it with Dark Pulse. It always uses Brave Bird on Blaziken, so if it moves before Greninja, you know it's Gale Wings – in which case you should switch out Blaziken to something that can take its Brave Bird as you have Greninja kill it. If it's Flame Body, do whatever lol.
Water / Poison is solely Tentacruel, which actually loses to Greninja and Mega Blaziken together, but that involves them slowly muscling through it in a last-mon situation; otherwise, Tentacruel just sits there being a huge pain in the ass with Protect and spreading Toxic and Surf, putting Greninja and Mega Blaziken under huge, undesirable pressure – you need a reliable answer to it in order not to be in huge trouble if the remainder of the opposing team is anywhere near decent.
Water / Flying is... awful. It's only one Pokemon you encounter on a regular basis:
889 | Gyarados4 | Careful | Chesto Berry | Dragon Dance | Aqua Tail | Earthquake | Rest | HP/SpD
...but then this happens:
252 SpA Protean Greninja Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gyarados: 64-76 (31.6 - 37.6%) -- 87.1% chance to 3HKO
-1 252+ Atk Mega Blaziken Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Gyarados: 68-80 (33.6 - 39.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Between Gyarados most likely having a partner that demands some attention, the inevitable Rock Slide miss, ChestoRest saying ‘lol cute damage bro', and the ease with which this monster gets out of control, Super Singles lead Greninja's archnemesis returns as what's basically Greninziken's Hurrrrrrnadus. It never gave me any real trouble in triples, though, for obvious Mega Manectric reasons, so an Electric-type or at least an Electric-type attack would make sense for the backups. In the Clawitzer run, I considered jumping through a bunch of hoops to get a Blaziken with Thunder Punch over Rock Slide for Gyarados coverage + perfect accuracy, but Thunder Punch is a rather unfortunate case in that it misses the KO on every single one of these targets (assuming Intimidate Gyara iirc), aka the only targets it's meant to hit – and when it comes down to it, I'd rather take a 90% to OHKO Moltres/Charizard over a 0% chance to do so. I even started considering Stone Edge on Garchomp for this sole target (whaaat...)
In addition to these threats, there are also a couple of things that resist Flare Blitz, are too light to be hit hard by Low Kick, and aren't hit hard by Greninja, which are generally a couple of Water-types such as Vaporeon4 (lol@Carbink). Now, what covers all these Pokemon? ...why, none other than the legendary HP Electric Gastrodon of course! That honestly was the first thing that came to mind, but I quickly shelved it because it outright lost to Talonflame and struggled against Gyarados of all things (needs Storm Drain boost to even 2HKO, admittedly this was before I had heard of Clear Smog on it). Approaching it more methodically, I listed all characteristics the desired backup should have:
-a strong Electric-type move (i.e. Thunderbolt) in order to easily dispatch of all listed problematic threats;
-a Flying resistance in order to comfortably switch in on Talonflame's Brave Bird;
-good natural bulk in order to function properly under Trick Room;
-a Ground immunity because you kinda need that with Blaziken's Earthquake weakness;
-preferably a base Speed of (positive-natured) 87 or (neutral-natured) 100 in order to outrun +1 Gyarados4;
-ideally a base Speed of outright >90 (for Moltres) or >100 (for Charizard), but whatever on this one really
...yeah that should be it. Sounds easy, right? ....well honestly, no. The first two points basically mandate an Electric-type, Ground-immune Electric-types are virtually nonexistent without resorting to Air Balloon, and I didn't really want to use Rotom-W because of its low Speed and horrible movepool (both getting outrun by +1 Gyarados and having to run HP Water as a secondary STAB move was too much really). I have nearly every main series game except the odd parallel version, and on all those games there was literally one Pokemon available that checked all the boxes: Zapdos.
(124 SpA Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gyarados: 204-240 (100.9 - 118.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO, yeaaah – and I obviously was planning on using more SpA anyway lol)
Fortunately I was gonna play through my friend's HG anyway in order to RNG Suicune (which I unfortunately had already caught on my SS before I learned RNG) as well as a few other legendaries, so I had the opportunity to get a flawless one on short notice. However, I obviously had only one chance to catch one, so I had to get its nature and Hidden Power right immediately – as such, I asked our resident genius turskain if Timid HP Ice -which I was planning on using- was the way to go. However, he recommended me to ditch Zapdos altogether and go with Thundurus-T instead, for a multitude of reasons:
-better offensive movepool; Zapdos's coverage movepool is basically limited to the highly iffy Heat Wave and super duper weak Hidden Power, whereas Thundurus trades Heat Wave for the extremely powerful Grass Knot as well as Dark Pulse and some niche shit like Psychic / Flash Cannon / Sludge Bomb if you feel like using that sort of thing;
-one extra Speed point; honestly, base 101 is just so much better than 100 it's just stupid;
-an Electric immunity; very, very much appreciated with a lead Greninja, especially that one time I faced an Electrode / Jolteon lead lol.
Zapdos's advantages over Thundurus-T are natural bulk, which can largely be patched up with a custom EV spread, and a better support movepool with Tailwind and Roost, which I wasn't planning on using anyway – who really needs Tailwind with Greninziken? turskain was right. Of course he was. Unfortunately, the only Thundurus I had was an imperfect one from Dream Radar. So I went to the game store, bought a used copy of White, got the requisite eight badges in like fifteen hours (that's fast for me, I'm not a speedrunner k), and another eight painstaking hours later (the first 6,5 of which were spent trying to hit a frame that was apparently rendered too awkward by the rain from the cutscene, honestly this was –well almost- as hard as breeding a Chansey on Emerald), I caught a flawless HP Ice Thundurus in only my third BW RNG (after a practise Volcarona on Black and Cobalion on White). After getting it transferred, I was all set for my third team member.
For my fourth team member, I followed my tried-and-true Maison doubles team building process:
-take a lead pair consisting of, preferably, a nuke and a supportive sniper;
-add a backup that covers most of their weaknesses;
-add Scizor.
...well obviously there was a little more to it than that, but Scizor was basically an immediate fit. I wanted a bulky-ish priority user, and Scizor was preferred over Conkeldurr and Azumarill because of its astouding defensive typing and because Conkeldurr seemed to have bad offensive synergy with Blaziken and Azumarill plays a much worse anti-counter game with Thundurus-T, with Scizor covering both of its weaknesses in Rock and Ice and Azumarill being a lot weaker and missing out on the more dangerous Ice.
That's it. Thundurus-T was a drain plug patching up all major and most minor holes the already super-powerful Greninziken had, and Scizor's awesome priority, bulk, power, and defensive typing added some much appreciated consistency and fall-back options. Without further ado:
By-Tor (Greninja) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Protean
Nature: Timid
IVs: 31/4-5/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
-Mat Block
-Dark Pulse
-Ice Beam
-Grass Knot
Greninja's standard set in Triples works great in Doubles as well, featuring a great offensive type in Ice Beam, its potentially most powerful move in Grass Knot, and an anti-TR move in Dark Pulse. Because Thundurus-T runs Grass Knot as well, I considered swapping it out for Scald before starting my streak, but I decided to stick with GK at first because I knew it was better in a vacuum – and it was around battle 300 that I thought ‘oh yeah I was supposed to see if Scald might be better than GK,' so I guess I didn't really miss Scald. Grass Knot is probably worth sticking with for Gastrodon if anything, because that one isn't hit hard by any other move and can get out of control rapidly, as well as its great power.
Flashheart (Blaziken) @ Blazikenite
Ability: Speed Boost
Nature: Adamant
IVs: 31/31/31/21-24/31/31
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
-Flare Blitz
-Low Kick
-Rock Slide
-Protect
Completely standard, with its most powerful and reliable STAB options and its least useless coverage option, as well as Protect, which works especially great in tandem with Speed Boost. Rock Slide is used considerably more in doubles than in triples so I expect to lose this streak a lot sooner than that one, but until now I've managed to get away with it because it's still got very specific targets and I've got a secondary check/backup plan to most of them....
Thundurus-T @ Choice Specs
Ability: Volt Absorb
Nature: Timid
IVs: 31/8/30/31/31/31
EVs: 164 HP / 8 Def / 84 SpA / 252 Spe
-Thunderbolt
-Grass Knot
-Dark Pulse
-Volt Switch
The elusive missing piece of the puzzle... Thundurus makes good use of Choice Specs, which also frees up Life Orb for Scizor, which needs it more. The bulky spread is essential in order not to have the team become too glass cannony, and its Special Attack is so stupidly high that it can easily afford it. The EV spread is turskain's ‘Zapdos but not Zapdos' spread, which he came up with when he wanted to replace Zapdos on one of his Triples teams with an Electric-immune Electric / Flying-type with a better offensive movepool. The SpA EVs put it one point below fully invested Timid Zapdos, allowing the rest to be invested into bulk, which results in around 5-10% less bulk than Zapdos, still allowing it to survive attacks such as Vaporeon4's Ice Beam. Even with the bulky spread, Thundurus-T hits literally as hard as max SpA Specs Zapdos, which obviously is plenty. The bulk is essential, and those 21 HP have directly decided several battles in my favour. As for the moves, Thunderbolt obviously is the go-to STAB move, while Grass Knot is Thundurus's best coverage option. For the third move, I was planning on using HP Ice, but upon further reflection I wasn't sure that was the best option; it was obviously rather redundant with Greninja's Ice Beam and has a rather low amount of targets (basically only the 4x Ice-weaks, not to mention Thundurus-T doesn't stand a chance against Garchomp with or without HP Ice because of that one having Stone Edge and a base 102 Speed to counter-troll Thundy's 101), while I was worried about my TR matchup. As such, I opted for Dark Pulse instead. With Protect's unavailability, Volt Switch is the best fourth move on a Choiced set; essentially, it's a STAB move that bypasses the lock-in effect. It also pairs wonderfully with Greninja's Mat Block, allowing you to reset it after switching Greninja out of, for instance, an Electric-type lead. Volt Absorb is a pretty sweet ability because Greninja is often forced out by the faster Electric-types Electrode, Jolteon, and Manectric4, so having a Pokemon immune to those is excellent. It's not entirely essential because Greninja is holding Focus Sash for a reason, but that doesn't help when facing two of those opponents at once or in case of parahax + immediate full paralysis (which still happened on one occasion, when facing lead Altaria – which mandates an immediate Ice Beam – and Electrode; fortunately, Altaria targeted Greninja on turn 1, which allowed Blaziken to use Protect on its Sing turn 2 and Greninja – which didn't get fully paralyzed – to kill it after all). Nevertheless, Volt Absorb is a far cry from Lightningrod, which is a tad ironic considering how cruelly GameFreak took the dream of Lightningrod Zapdos away from us haha. (On the flip side, that one would be an absolute terror to face in the maison, so I guess it's not that bad.)
Gene (Scizor) @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
Nature: Adamant
IVs: 31/31/31/6-7/31/31
EVs: 212 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Spe
-Bullet Punch
-Bug Bite
-Superpower
-Protect
Again, completely standard set, with enough Speed to reach 91, right above the crowded 90 tier and nasties such as Lanturn4.
Aside from the obvious Veterans and Mara, the trainer I fear most is probably Rasmus, specifically Sand Rush Excadrill (which is extremely hard to stop if Blaziken is dead; incidentally, regular Blaziken doesn't outrun it with a single Speed Boost and as such is completely unviable on this team lol) and Scarfchomp (which Blaziken needs two Speed Boosts to outrun and dgaf about Greninja's Sash with that usually having been broken by sand already. Having to guess the set isn't fun either). This team doesn't have Tailwind to counter those (which admittedly is too niche on a fast team like this if you have only sixteen moveslots available), so yeah. Roller Skaters are pretty darn scary as well, with the potential to run a bunch of Scarfers and other very dangerous sets; an Aerodactyl + Gyarados3 lead even is a likely streak-ender. That same Gyarados3 is one of the more dangerous foes too because it outspeeds and OHKOes my Gyarados counter Thundurus-T with Stone Edge after a single DD; fortunately, it ‘should' prefer to attack Blaziken turn 1, but it doesn't always do so and I'm forced to skip Mat Block to use GK on any lead Gyarados from a Roller Skater ‘just in case'. Trick Room in general also isn't something I'm keen on facing, but it turned out to be less of a problem than I thought: Greninja can turn into a good defensive type via Protean (which against Psychics/Hex Maniacs generally is Dark and against Slowthings generally is Grass) and as such survive for a considerable amount of time, Blaziken usually demands total attention for at least one turn and can capitalise on that with Protect, and Thundurus-T's and Scizor's good bulk and defensive typing have always allowed me to pull through until now. As an additional note, Thundurus's base 101 Speed conveniently is below most of the fast stuff used by Hex Maniacs e.a. (such as Starmie / Alakazam / Espeon / Froslass; also killed a boosted Volcarona under TR one time lol), which is pretty cool.
Regarding individual Pokemon, Volcarona is basically the only Rock Slide target that isn't covered properly by Thundurus (basically everything) or Greninja (Chandelure) and as such requires a lot of caution. Fortunately Flare Blitz does only a bit less than Rock Slide and Speed Boost allows Blaziken to remain ahead of it so even in case of a miss there are ways around it, but this is basically the opponent that makes me curse Rock Slide's inaccuracy most. Lanturn4 has a gr8 defensive typing and is as light as a feather and as such isn't hit hard by anything Greninziken can throw at it – basically, I try to keep it under pressure and kill it last by spamming Dark Pulse + Rock Slide and haxing my way through it. I know, ‘how tf can you rely on hax in the maison,' but Dark Pulse + Rock Slide have around a 41% flinch rate together iirc (taking accuracy into account) and once its Chesto Berry is used up a single flinch or crit is often enough to beat it, so it isn't that bad... The non-Scarfed / non-Zapdos2 legendaries I'm probably least keen of facing are Latios/Latias1 because Flare Blitz + Greninja attack doesn't KO them and they have Lax Incense for additional hilarity, so when facing them I'm forced to either waste Blaziken's second turn with Protect or take the risk of sacking it outright – fortunately, it's never had too drastic consequences yet. There probably are more that I'm forgetting right now, and of course there are also the fast nasties such as Aerodactyl and Darmanitan4 that I can handle fine by themselves but will obviously cause trouble if I face multiple of them at the same time, but hey, that's doubles for you.
Regarding individual Pokemon, Volcarona is basically the only Rock Slide target that isn't covered properly by Thundurus (basically everything) or Greninja (Chandelure) and as such requires a lot of caution. Fortunately Flare Blitz does only a bit less than Rock Slide and Speed Boost allows Blaziken to remain ahead of it so even in case of a miss there are ways around it, but this is basically the opponent that makes me curse Rock Slide's inaccuracy most. Lanturn4 has a gr8 defensive typing and is as light as a feather and as such isn't hit hard by anything Greninziken can throw at it – basically, I try to keep it under pressure and kill it last by spamming Dark Pulse + Rock Slide and haxing my way through it. I know, ‘how tf can you rely on hax in the maison,' but Dark Pulse + Rock Slide have around a 41% flinch rate together iirc (taking accuracy into account) and once its Chesto Berry is used up a single flinch or crit is often enough to beat it, so it isn't that bad... The non-Scarfed / non-Zapdos2 legendaries I'm probably least keen of facing are Latios/Latias1 because Flare Blitz + Greninja attack doesn't KO them and they have Lax Incense for additional hilarity, so when facing them I'm forced to either waste Blaziken's second turn with Protect or take the risk of sacking it outright – fortunately, it's never had too drastic consequences yet. There probably are more that I'm forgetting right now, and of course there are also the fast nasties such as Aerodactyl and Darmanitan4 that I can handle fine by themselves but will obviously cause trouble if I face multiple of them at the same time, but hey, that's doubles for you.
#441: TJXG-WWWW-WWXZ-DWA2
A battle against Rasmus that quickly went to hell because he brought his two most dangerous backups in Scarfchomp and Sand Rush Excadrill, with Scarfchomp also killing Greninja (which had its Sash removed by Tyranitar's sand) and Blaziken (perfect targeting) with Outrage. It came down to Thundurus locked into GK versus (a damaged Excadrill), and I was one crit away from losing – however, Thundurus survived with exactly 21 HP lol.
#570: WUBG-WWWW-WWXZ-DWJ7
A horrible lead pair in Shiftry4 + Gale Wings Talonflame, with Shiftry using Fake Out on Greninja turn 1. Muk4 was another dangerous backup (as well as the always annoying Weezing4); however, it didn't get really dangerous because of no hax going the AI's way and an opportune Dark Pulse flinch on Muk.
#841: 7TFG-WWWW-WWXZ-DWDS
I'm not afraid of lead Gyarados – switch in Thundurus-T under Mat Block and click Volt Switch while laughing. I am afraid of a Roller Skater leading with Gyarados though, because it could be Gyarados3, which outspeeds both Thundurus and Greninja after one DD and OHKOes Thundurus with Stone Edge. As such, whenever a Roller Skater leads with Gyarados, I'm basically forced to switch out Blaziken for Thundurus and target it with GK – if it's Gyara4 I can let Thundurus kill it, while GK 2HKOes it if it's Gyara3 (which ‘should' prefer to Waterfall the shit out of Blaziken anyway rather than set up – but unfortunately doesn't always do so, which made a different battle that I didn't save become really scary.) This time, it fortunately was Gyara4 using Aqua Tail – unfortunately, its partner was Ampharos, which paralyzed Greninja with Thunder and killed it next turn. The parahax probably would have caused an instant loss had that been Gyara3 using DD. Anyway, VS back to Blaziken and send out the weakened Thundurus to replace Greninja – as Talonflame is sent out. Standard play is Protect Blaziken + kill with Greninja, which Thundurus obviously does better – but Talonflame targets the less attractive Thundurus with Flare Blitz and KOes it. I send out Scizor, but at this point it's once again an instant loss if Talonflame is Gale Wings. It's Flame Body (or was targeting Scizor lol), Rock Slide kills it, and the last mon Yanmega isn't too much of a problem. Ampharos paralyzed Blaziken with Thunder too somewhere along the way lol. While this battle didn't come down to a sliver of HP on my part, my streak would have ended on the spot had I had a little more bad luck with the matchup :<
A battle against Rasmus that quickly went to hell because he brought his two most dangerous backups in Scarfchomp and Sand Rush Excadrill, with Scarfchomp also killing Greninja (which had its Sash removed by Tyranitar's sand) and Blaziken (perfect targeting) with Outrage. It came down to Thundurus locked into GK versus (a damaged Excadrill), and I was one crit away from losing – however, Thundurus survived with exactly 21 HP lol.
#570: WUBG-WWWW-WWXZ-DWJ7
A horrible lead pair in Shiftry4 + Gale Wings Talonflame, with Shiftry using Fake Out on Greninja turn 1. Muk4 was another dangerous backup (as well as the always annoying Weezing4); however, it didn't get really dangerous because of no hax going the AI's way and an opportune Dark Pulse flinch on Muk.
#841: 7TFG-WWWW-WWXZ-DWDS
I'm not afraid of lead Gyarados – switch in Thundurus-T under Mat Block and click Volt Switch while laughing. I am afraid of a Roller Skater leading with Gyarados though, because it could be Gyarados3, which outspeeds both Thundurus and Greninja after one DD and OHKOes Thundurus with Stone Edge. As such, whenever a Roller Skater leads with Gyarados, I'm basically forced to switch out Blaziken for Thundurus and target it with GK – if it's Gyara4 I can let Thundurus kill it, while GK 2HKOes it if it's Gyara3 (which ‘should' prefer to Waterfall the shit out of Blaziken anyway rather than set up – but unfortunately doesn't always do so, which made a different battle that I didn't save become really scary.) This time, it fortunately was Gyara4 using Aqua Tail – unfortunately, its partner was Ampharos, which paralyzed Greninja with Thunder and killed it next turn. The parahax probably would have caused an instant loss had that been Gyara3 using DD. Anyway, VS back to Blaziken and send out the weakened Thundurus to replace Greninja – as Talonflame is sent out. Standard play is Protect Blaziken + kill with Greninja, which Thundurus obviously does better – but Talonflame targets the less attractive Thundurus with Flare Blitz and KOes it. I send out Scizor, but at this point it's once again an instant loss if Talonflame is Gale Wings. It's Flame Body (or was targeting Scizor lol), Rock Slide kills it, and the last mon Yanmega isn't too much of a problem. Ampharos paralyzed Blaziken with Thunder too somewhere along the way lol. While this battle didn't come down to a sliver of HP on my part, my streak would have ended on the spot had I had a little more bad luck with the matchup :<
When I started using this team, I admittedly had forgotten how ridiculous Mega Blaziken's power is, but even then I never would have expected it to perform this well. I was aiming to beat my Mega Gardevoir / Weavile record and reach top 10 (which in the light of a few other streaks being ongoing came down to reaching 325+), which I already considered to be enough of a challenge considering my previous Greninziken records, and after reaching that I aimed for the 545+ required for a secure top 5 spot (again in the light of other ongoing streaks) – but even after reaching second place I had a hard time believing I might actually be on my way to 1000, especially considering how elusive a benchmark this is in doubles. This streak felt way more like the 810 singles streak than the 1001 (1015 now but w/e) triples streak – in the triples streak everything short of 1000 would have been an underperformance considering the team's potential, whereas I knew for both singles and doubles that the teams definitely were beatable but I maintained consistency and kept on somehow winning the difficult matchups, lucking out on a semi-regular basis, and avoiding that one /too/ difficult matchup. It's really really awkward standing among (or above ;_;) the giants on top of those leaderboards.
As for this streak, I don't like to leave stuff abandoned so I'll certainly wrap it up at some point, but I'm not sure how motivated I am right now. 1000 is already way, way more than I would have signed up for, and unlike in triples there are no reasonable targets ahead on the leaderboard (come on I'm not gonna beat Eppie, my luck just has to run out before then) - not to mention it might be smart to wait until somebody else (turskain???) hits 1000 because I seem to perform a lot better when I'm chasing something. The most satisfying part would be to have Greninziken *finally* play out their true potential, and no matter how far I'll end up bringing them, I hope I managed to do that. I don't have any other promising ongoing streaks right now (haven't touched singles since I lost, I lost rotations at 149 with an improved version of my X team because it's just way too vulnerable to crits and that was when the consecutive crits happened on Clefable - from what seemed to be a Super Luck Togekiss - and multi doesn't count), so I guess it's back to triples now. Whenever I get bored of the maison I seem to end up returning a week later and cranking out 100 battles per day (this streak was at 250-ish when I posted my triples streak and I resumed it last weekend) so idk when that will be, but whatever. I've got two ongoing 1000+ streak right now and that's kinda cool.
Thanks for reading, stay awesome, and good luck, everyone ^^
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Fantastic streak, The Dutch Plumberjack. Glad to see Thundurus-T work out for you, but I think you're giving me a little too much credit - I didn't think pairing up Greninja with Blaziken was that effective, but you made it work and smashed every non-Eppie record in the process. Amazing stuff.
sunzet-therian forme, I'd suggest running a Timid nature on Lucario and Thundurus; they both have a really good speed tier with Mega Lucario outspeeding Base 111s like Tornadus and Thundurus and everything below, such as Lati@s and Froslass, and Thundurus also outspeeding the crowded base 100 and base 110 speed tiers depending on its forme.
CB Landorus-T might also prefer a Jolly nature with its decent base 91 Speed. Discharge on Thundurus from the side position with only one Electric-immune teammate doesn't seem great; Thunderbolt and Dark Pulse sound better, and Protect would also be nice to have on the set if possible. I like SimicCombine's suggestion of Taunt, too, but 4-moveslot syndrome is starting to kick in already.
Specs Rotom-W is good, but having both Thundurus and Rotom-W on the team seems redundant - you could try Landorus-T in the lead center instead with U-Turn instead of Volt Switch, for a lead trio of Thundurus / Landorus-T / Greninja.
sunzet-therian forme, I'd suggest running a Timid nature on Lucario and Thundurus; they both have a really good speed tier with Mega Lucario outspeeding Base 111s like Tornadus and Thundurus and everything below, such as Lati@s and Froslass, and Thundurus also outspeeding the crowded base 100 and base 110 speed tiers depending on its forme.
CB Landorus-T might also prefer a Jolly nature with its decent base 91 Speed. Discharge on Thundurus from the side position with only one Electric-immune teammate doesn't seem great; Thunderbolt and Dark Pulse sound better, and Protect would also be nice to have on the set if possible. I like SimicCombine's suggestion of Taunt, too, but 4-moveslot syndrome is starting to kick in already.
Specs Rotom-W is good, but having both Thundurus and Rotom-W on the team seems redundant - you could try Landorus-T in the lead center instead with U-Turn instead of Volt Switch, for a lead trio of Thundurus / Landorus-T / Greninja.
Damn! I already caught the modest thundurus and adamant landurur. Would they still work? I can redo Lucario though.
Ok yeah, I'll admit that Zapdos had a few lucky rolls, but I hope you aren't blaming the loss on that. Just looking at your team, how exactly are you meant to beat it in the first place? The thing steamrolls your whole team. Zapdos + Thundurus are the two most annoying things to Dragon Dance + Sub Mega Salamence since they resist your Flying STAB and are immune to Earthquake (I'm assuming that's your second attack), and you don't seem to have the right support for those two. Aegislash fills the obligatory Steel Type partner but Greninja doesn't seem to fit, it can't switch in (although it can revenge kill with Ice Beam) so I would be looking to replace it..
On a lighter note, Maison de Combat is a way cooler name than Battle Maison
Well, I gots a decision to make, a decision which requires more breeding, but could pay off in the end.
Having cleared another 48 battles (bringing Aron to 108), I decided to compile a list of things that can prevent a first-turn TR by offing Slowbro:
148/108/252+ Sassy Slowbro checks:
Choiced: Porygon-Z 2, Slaking3, Tyrantrum4, Archeops3, Armaldo4, Thundurus2, Haxorus3 (requires Rivalry, female)
Megahorn: Escavalier 1,3,4, Heracross 3,4
Solarbeam: Vileplume2, Tangrowth3, Victreebel4, Vileplume4 (must lead with Drought Ninetales or follow enemy Sunny Day)
Leaf Storm: Victreebel2, Roserade3, Exeggutor3, Serperior4
Guess: Landorus1, Articuno2, Tyrantrum3, Bastiodon3, Mamoswine3, Vanilluxe3, Cryogonal3, Pinsir4, Whiscash4, Wailord4, Walrein4, Donphan4
Now, by switching the nature to Bold, it takes the Tyrantrum4 and Heracross OHKOs off the table, meaning under the circumstances we've come to expect by leading with Aron, the AI will not target Slowbro with their respective strongest moves.
The only OHKO I noticed it immediately added was Ampharos4, giving its Thunder a 50% chance to do the job, and I can confirm that the possibility of a OHKO, even a 25% chance, is enough that the AI will go for it. I used Magnzeone4 as a barometer of what can and can't do the job (Thunderbolt from Modest 252+ does 98% max) with Chandelure and Volcarona to test their best SE STAB move of their types also. Surprisingly, Latios3 with its Specs Draco Meteor still doesn't come as close as those three could.
Escavalier is still bad news, having just enough attack over Heracross to keep the odds for a OHKO.
The main thing making me hesitate is the fact that I've fought a *lot* of Ampharos4 up to this point, and with my current spread, that 50% is higher odds than most unguaranteed OHKOs aside from the choice users (87% chance for Thundurus with the Sassy build) and it also turns the Thundurus and Vileplume into guaranteed OHKOs. Neither of those two pokemon are particularly rare, and while Vileplume relies on sunlight to be in effect by the time it attacks, it's gotta happen at some point, right?
So, while the Bold nature takes two Set4 OHKOs away, it also ensures Slowbro'll always be killed by at least two more should they target it, plus adds Amphy to the group of threats. As it stands, the odds of Heracross4 and Tyrantrum4 getting a OHKO on Sassybro are not very good (25% and 31% respectively) but hell, I was critted by a fucking male Rivalry Haxorus, so that doesn't really mean shit, does it.
Opinions, anyone?
Having cleared another 48 battles (bringing Aron to 108), I decided to compile a list of things that can prevent a first-turn TR by offing Slowbro:
148/108/252+ Sassy Slowbro checks:
Choiced: Porygon-Z 2, Slaking3, Tyrantrum4, Archeops3, Armaldo4, Thundurus2, Haxorus3 (requires Rivalry, female)
Megahorn: Escavalier 1,3,4, Heracross 3,4
Solarbeam: Vileplume2, Tangrowth3, Victreebel4, Vileplume4 (must lead with Drought Ninetales or follow enemy Sunny Day)
Leaf Storm: Victreebel2, Roserade3, Exeggutor3, Serperior4
Guess: Landorus1, Articuno2, Tyrantrum3, Bastiodon3, Mamoswine3, Vanilluxe3, Cryogonal3, Pinsir4, Whiscash4, Wailord4, Walrein4, Donphan4
Now, by switching the nature to Bold, it takes the Tyrantrum4 and Heracross OHKOs off the table, meaning under the circumstances we've come to expect by leading with Aron, the AI will not target Slowbro with their respective strongest moves.
The only OHKO I noticed it immediately added was Ampharos4, giving its Thunder a 50% chance to do the job, and I can confirm that the possibility of a OHKO, even a 25% chance, is enough that the AI will go for it. I used Magnzeone4 as a barometer of what can and can't do the job (Thunderbolt from Modest 252+ does 98% max) with Chandelure and Volcarona to test their best SE STAB move of their types also. Surprisingly, Latios3 with its Specs Draco Meteor still doesn't come as close as those three could.
Escavalier is still bad news, having just enough attack over Heracross to keep the odds for a OHKO.
The main thing making me hesitate is the fact that I've fought a *lot* of Ampharos4 up to this point, and with my current spread, that 50% is higher odds than most unguaranteed OHKOs aside from the choice users (87% chance for Thundurus with the Sassy build) and it also turns the Thundurus and Vileplume into guaranteed OHKOs. Neither of those two pokemon are particularly rare, and while Vileplume relies on sunlight to be in effect by the time it attacks, it's gotta happen at some point, right?
So, while the Bold nature takes two Set4 OHKOs away, it also ensures Slowbro'll always be killed by at least two more should they target it, plus adds Amphy to the group of threats. As it stands, the odds of Heracross4 and Tyrantrum4 getting a OHKO on Sassybro are not very good (25% and 31% respectively) but hell, I was critted by a fucking male Rivalry Haxorus, so that doesn't really mean shit, does it.
Opinions, anyone?
What is your whole team? because I'm having a hard time actually finding the full write-up.
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I actually wasn't planning on doing a full write-up unless the team managed to beat my streak of using only randoms, which sits at 315 <__<
But, since you asked...
All pokes have 0 speed IVs, if that wasn't obvious, being a TR team.
Slowbro @ Lum Berry
Oblivious, Sassy (148 HP/108 Def/252 SDef)
-Trick Room
-Scald
-Flamethrower
-Heal Pulse
Heal Pulse is basically worthless for Aron, but it's fantastic in Triples for support, and Camerupt certainly likes it. With no investment it can't dent let alone KO anything without a 4x weak or a crit, but Scald does burn often enough to help. It mainly KOs the targets Aron hits with Endeavor (unless Aron targets far right) and occasionally things weak to fire with bad SDef in the sunlight, such as Tangrowth. That list of pokes is actually pleasantly surprisingly long.
Aron @ Berry Juice
Sturdy, Gentle (no EVs)
-Protect
-Endeavor
-Sunny Day
-Swagger
This iron nugget came about as result of a mass breeding giveaway. Every time I do a giveaway, I always make a dozen or so 5+ 0 IV pokes to give to people that offer lv2-3 route fodder instead of another breeding reject, and during an Aron giveaway, I hatched a shiny. Since its egg moves save Endeavor were all worthless, it sat in a box, until I realised it could function as the abuse magnet you guys love.
Functionally, I love this thing. Sunny Day gets a lot of use, unlike Swagger, and Aron lives to see the end of more than half his battles, probably closer to 75%, but part of that is thanks to the AI stupidly using moves like Focus Blast and Thunder to kill it, which have missed both after drinking the juice, and even at 1HP.
Iron Barbs hasn't been a problem, since Slowbro is able to destroy Ferrothorn by itself, but being punked by Rough Skin Garchomp has happened, rendering its Berry Juice useless. Sometimes Slowbro can Heal Pulse it, but I recall at least one battle where it couldn't do that in time; fortunately with TR already up, it changed very little.
Hail + priority moves a la Abomasnow4 (who packs both Ice Shard plus the auto-hail) or Aurorus4 are also a problem, but not one that can't or hasn't been rectified, and it requires Abomasnow to lead far opposite Camerupt, or be partnered with a water type that threatens it.
Camerupt @ Cameruptite
Anger Point, Quiet (252 HP/4 Def/252 SpA)
-Protect
-Earth Power
-Solarbeam
-Eruption
Camerupt has undergone a lot of moveset changes before settling into this team. First Protect/Earth Power/Heat Wave/Ancientpower (general set coined well before this team) then Protect/EP/Eruption/AP, then Protect/EP/Flamethrower/Eruption, and then what you see now. Solarbeam and Sunny Day on Aron are a direct result of NoCheese and his own successful Aron use, so I credit him for that. I reread his post after wanting to find support moves for Aron that might be used more than once every 80 battles. lo and behold, I'm also reminded that Camerupt can learn Solarbeam!
Unsurprisingly, Camerupt typically scores the fatal blow on four of the opponents per battle, and the move of choice is predictable and straightforward. If neither opponent packs a water move, or if an Earthquake/Rock Slide user is more threatening than the prospect of losing full-powered Eruption, I'll usually forego Protect and attack. There are the occasional imminent OHKOs I'm mindful of, though, particularly Latios3, Refridgerate Aurorus4 Hyper Beam, and the standard OP choice item stuff.
The base 20 speed is a godsend, because it means that together, he and Aron are outsped only by priority moves, and there is an extremely short list of things that they can't KO together, and they require Sitrus Berries plus some other factors going their way.
I've been lucky in that thus far, I've witnessed only two attempts to cancel out TR by using it the first turn; the first was made by an enemy Slowbro, who was partnered with pokes that couldn't KO anything the second turn; the second was made by Trevenant4, who wasn't partnered with anything that threatened Camerupt, and was killed by Eruption. I knew it selected TR because Camerupt is normally slower, even with the Iron Ball, and yet Camerupt attacked first. I'm not looking forward to meeting Bronzong under these circumstances.
Dual waters are another problem; sometimes they're weak enough to be KOd by Earth Power, but usually it means Camerupt has to switch to either of the next two:
Gardevoir @ Iron Ball
Telepathy, Quiet (252 HP/4 Def/252 SpA)
-Helping Hand
-Grass Knot
-Moonblast
-Psychic
A modified version of one of three Gardevoir which originally had Heal Pulse. If Gardevoir is present, it usually means it's needed for something other than support, and since she's fantastic at offing bulky waters for Camerupt, HP was replaced with Grass Knot. Energy Ball allows it to ensure a KO on Gastrodon/Quagsire/Whiscash, but Grass Knot takes down Wailord, whom I hate fighting more.
I briefly considered Dazzling Gleam over Moonblast, to get a similar but weaker racket going of Endeavor + Spread Damage, but not only is DG too weak, Earth Power is the only reason I'm not afraid of Bastiodon4 who happily spams Wide Guard even with Aron in sight; also, I recently completed a battle against a Chef where Camerupt fled a Feraligatr + Kingdra, and Moonblast was able to score the KO on Kingdra, whereas DG would have failed. The higher base power and more focused damage is more useful in the long run anyway.
Thunderbolt hasn't been missed yet, nor has Helping Hand been needed, admittedly, but it's there for Eruption and Earthquake if it comes to that, which is extremely handy. The only other move I'd consider over HH is Destiny Bond, which requires rebreeding.
Clawitzer @ Life Orb
Mega Launcher, Quiet (252 HP/252 SpA/4 SDef)
-Aura Sphere
-Water Pulse
-Dark Pulse
-Ice Beam
Most frequent substitute for a fallen poke. Horrible speed allows it to run an offensive item, and its type coverage and ability speak for themselves. While it doesn't really tank anything but water moves, if it's replacing Aron or Camerupt, that's what it's going to do. Heal Pulse is used more to wipe off LO recoil than actually heal it, and when that happens, it's usually because Slowbro has nothing better to do and the battle is all but won.
On an Aron-less version of this team (during which I learned that Oblivious + Lum Berry is more valuable than Regenerator + Mental Herb for Slowbro) that used a Hariyama as the center, Clawitzer was barely etched out in value by Thundurus-T, but with Aron as the new MVP, Clawitzer's insane coverage and power are worth more than electric absorption and some assorted resistances. If Thundurus learned a really good flying move and maybe something better than Focus Blast, things might be different.
Landorus-T @ Power Anklet
Intimidate, Brave (252 HP, 252 Att, 4 SDef)
-Knock Off
-Rock Slide
-Earthquake
-Hammer Arm
Only physical hitter on the team. On the Aron-less team, Landorus' main and really only true purpose on the team was to debuff Escavalier enough so that Megahorn couldn't OHKO, but with Aron pretty much needing to remain centered, it's far less likely that that will happen, since subbing Lando in for Slowbro directly doesn't help much. I haven't been forced to find a workaround for this, yet, BUT if Escavalier were centered, I'd then replace Camerupt so that Intimidate can still reach it. I'd sub out Aron only if Camerupt could easily dispatch the two enemies near it by itself and needn't Protect, but there are innumerable scenarios where that isn't feasible, either.
Anyway. Landorus has valuable coverage like Clawitzer, particularly killing Ghosts, and has seen quite a lot of use in taking Fake Outs or Quick Attacks for Aron. Intimidate is still helpful during the cleanup round(s) but otherwise Landorus has seen most of its action merely as waste disposal.
While the last three pokes might seem interchangeable at first, especially if making room for a backup setter, Slowbro fainting without TR means Aron more than likely must also switch and I'm already up shit creek. They made the team partly from my enjoying using them (and desire not to use Dusclops like Eppie or NoCheese) and fantastic coverage, though admittedly bulk is not their strong points, and with Aron/Camerupt doing nearly all of the work, perhaps I should consider backup that works better as failsafes and less as mop-up (however being able to slaughter things that Camerupt cannot is an absolute must.)
Trick Room rarely reverts and when it does, there's typically one badly injured opponent remaining, but that also could lend to running an extremely versatile and/or overpowered poke for cleanup as well. I already have a Terrakion for exactly that. Still, being able to use Landorus to nerf an Escavalier/Tyrantrum/Heracross is still of value.
But, since you asked...
All pokes have 0 speed IVs, if that wasn't obvious, being a TR team.
Slowbro @ Lum Berry
Oblivious, Sassy (148 HP/108 Def/252 SDef)
-Trick Room
-Scald
-Flamethrower
-Heal Pulse
Heal Pulse is basically worthless for Aron, but it's fantastic in Triples for support, and Camerupt certainly likes it. With no investment it can't dent let alone KO anything without a 4x weak or a crit, but Scald does burn often enough to help. It mainly KOs the targets Aron hits with Endeavor (unless Aron targets far right) and occasionally things weak to fire with bad SDef in the sunlight, such as Tangrowth. That list of pokes is actually pleasantly surprisingly long.
Aron @ Berry Juice
Sturdy, Gentle (no EVs)
-Protect
-Endeavor
-Sunny Day
-Swagger
This iron nugget came about as result of a mass breeding giveaway. Every time I do a giveaway, I always make a dozen or so 5+ 0 IV pokes to give to people that offer lv2-3 route fodder instead of another breeding reject, and during an Aron giveaway, I hatched a shiny. Since its egg moves save Endeavor were all worthless, it sat in a box, until I realised it could function as the abuse magnet you guys love.
Functionally, I love this thing. Sunny Day gets a lot of use, unlike Swagger, and Aron lives to see the end of more than half his battles, probably closer to 75%, but part of that is thanks to the AI stupidly using moves like Focus Blast and Thunder to kill it, which have missed both after drinking the juice, and even at 1HP.
Iron Barbs hasn't been a problem, since Slowbro is able to destroy Ferrothorn by itself, but being punked by Rough Skin Garchomp has happened, rendering its Berry Juice useless. Sometimes Slowbro can Heal Pulse it, but I recall at least one battle where it couldn't do that in time; fortunately with TR already up, it changed very little.
Hail + priority moves a la Abomasnow4 (who packs both Ice Shard plus the auto-hail) or Aurorus4 are also a problem, but not one that can't or hasn't been rectified, and it requires Abomasnow to lead far opposite Camerupt, or be partnered with a water type that threatens it.
Camerupt @ Cameruptite
Anger Point, Quiet (252 HP/4 Def/252 SpA)
-Protect
-Earth Power
-Solarbeam
-Eruption
Camerupt has undergone a lot of moveset changes before settling into this team. First Protect/Earth Power/Heat Wave/Ancientpower (general set coined well before this team) then Protect/EP/Eruption/AP, then Protect/EP/Flamethrower/Eruption, and then what you see now. Solarbeam and Sunny Day on Aron are a direct result of NoCheese and his own successful Aron use, so I credit him for that. I reread his post after wanting to find support moves for Aron that might be used more than once every 80 battles. lo and behold, I'm also reminded that Camerupt can learn Solarbeam!
Unsurprisingly, Camerupt typically scores the fatal blow on four of the opponents per battle, and the move of choice is predictable and straightforward. If neither opponent packs a water move, or if an Earthquake/Rock Slide user is more threatening than the prospect of losing full-powered Eruption, I'll usually forego Protect and attack. There are the occasional imminent OHKOs I'm mindful of, though, particularly Latios3, Refridgerate Aurorus4 Hyper Beam, and the standard OP choice item stuff.
The base 20 speed is a godsend, because it means that together, he and Aron are outsped only by priority moves, and there is an extremely short list of things that they can't KO together, and they require Sitrus Berries plus some other factors going their way.
I've been lucky in that thus far, I've witnessed only two attempts to cancel out TR by using it the first turn; the first was made by an enemy Slowbro, who was partnered with pokes that couldn't KO anything the second turn; the second was made by Trevenant4, who wasn't partnered with anything that threatened Camerupt, and was killed by Eruption. I knew it selected TR because Camerupt is normally slower, even with the Iron Ball, and yet Camerupt attacked first. I'm not looking forward to meeting Bronzong under these circumstances.
Dual waters are another problem; sometimes they're weak enough to be KOd by Earth Power, but usually it means Camerupt has to switch to either of the next two:
Gardevoir @ Iron Ball
Telepathy, Quiet (252 HP/4 Def/252 SpA)
-Helping Hand
-Grass Knot
-Moonblast
-Psychic
A modified version of one of three Gardevoir which originally had Heal Pulse. If Gardevoir is present, it usually means it's needed for something other than support, and since she's fantastic at offing bulky waters for Camerupt, HP was replaced with Grass Knot. Energy Ball allows it to ensure a KO on Gastrodon/Quagsire/Whiscash, but Grass Knot takes down Wailord, whom I hate fighting more.
I briefly considered Dazzling Gleam over Moonblast, to get a similar but weaker racket going of Endeavor + Spread Damage, but not only is DG too weak, Earth Power is the only reason I'm not afraid of Bastiodon4 who happily spams Wide Guard even with Aron in sight; also, I recently completed a battle against a Chef where Camerupt fled a Feraligatr + Kingdra, and Moonblast was able to score the KO on Kingdra, whereas DG would have failed. The higher base power and more focused damage is more useful in the long run anyway.
Thunderbolt hasn't been missed yet, nor has Helping Hand been needed, admittedly, but it's there for Eruption and Earthquake if it comes to that, which is extremely handy. The only other move I'd consider over HH is Destiny Bond, which requires rebreeding.
Clawitzer @ Life Orb
Mega Launcher, Quiet (252 HP/252 SpA/4 SDef)
-Aura Sphere
-Water Pulse
-Dark Pulse
-Ice Beam
Most frequent substitute for a fallen poke. Horrible speed allows it to run an offensive item, and its type coverage and ability speak for themselves. While it doesn't really tank anything but water moves, if it's replacing Aron or Camerupt, that's what it's going to do. Heal Pulse is used more to wipe off LO recoil than actually heal it, and when that happens, it's usually because Slowbro has nothing better to do and the battle is all but won.
On an Aron-less version of this team (during which I learned that Oblivious + Lum Berry is more valuable than Regenerator + Mental Herb for Slowbro) that used a Hariyama as the center, Clawitzer was barely etched out in value by Thundurus-T, but with Aron as the new MVP, Clawitzer's insane coverage and power are worth more than electric absorption and some assorted resistances. If Thundurus learned a really good flying move and maybe something better than Focus Blast, things might be different.
Landorus-T @ Power Anklet
Intimidate, Brave (252 HP, 252 Att, 4 SDef)
-Knock Off
-Rock Slide
-Earthquake
-Hammer Arm
Only physical hitter on the team. On the Aron-less team, Landorus' main and really only true purpose on the team was to debuff Escavalier enough so that Megahorn couldn't OHKO, but with Aron pretty much needing to remain centered, it's far less likely that that will happen, since subbing Lando in for Slowbro directly doesn't help much. I haven't been forced to find a workaround for this, yet, BUT if Escavalier were centered, I'd then replace Camerupt so that Intimidate can still reach it. I'd sub out Aron only if Camerupt could easily dispatch the two enemies near it by itself and needn't Protect, but there are innumerable scenarios where that isn't feasible, either.
Anyway. Landorus has valuable coverage like Clawitzer, particularly killing Ghosts, and has seen quite a lot of use in taking Fake Outs or Quick Attacks for Aron. Intimidate is still helpful during the cleanup round(s) but otherwise Landorus has seen most of its action merely as waste disposal.
While the last three pokes might seem interchangeable at first, especially if making room for a backup setter, Slowbro fainting without TR means Aron more than likely must also switch and I'm already up shit creek. They made the team partly from my enjoying using them (and desire not to use Dusclops like Eppie or NoCheese) and fantastic coverage, though admittedly bulk is not their strong points, and with Aron/Camerupt doing nearly all of the work, perhaps I should consider backup that works better as failsafes and less as mop-up (however being able to slaughter things that Camerupt cannot is an absolute must.)
Trick Room rarely reverts and when it does, there's typically one badly injured opponent remaining, but that also could lend to running an extremely versatile and/or overpowered poke for cleanup as well. I already have a Terrakion for exactly that. Still, being able to use Landorus to nerf an Escavalier/Tyrantrum/Heracross is still of value.
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