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AAA Almost Any Ability

Tim Goodman said:
has anyone ever seen any success w/ specs water spout primordial sea blastoise in AAA ?
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That brings me back man. I ran specs Drizzle Spout Blastoise 5 years ago. It's actually the first time I ever topped ladder I was hella hyped at the time and thought I was some big shot player.

Then I heard about this w0rd guy so I thought I'd challenge him to get some clout, show the ppl who I am you feel? He 6-0d me in 20 turns. Super embarrassing.
From then on my only objective in life had been to beat w0rd. This ultimately meant ditching this Blastoise set. Big turtle boi is just too slow and too weak to rock that set successfully.

So yes I guess I did get success with it, but I do not think it's a good set, can't rightfully recommend running it.

Years later I was messing around theorising fat stallbreakers in toxic spikes teams. Cause breaking stall is fun but breaking stall with some unkillable fat that they desperately try to wear down in vain is even more amusing.
It's then that I started running Pringles Boi.

Pringles Boi has a fair few tools that Turtle Boi wishes he had. You have a dual stab, you have recover, you have wisp, you have taunt and you spin block. This means that you can continuously get back to full and fire off some Water spouts while taunting faster threats that may live. Chansey can't even touch you it's awesome.
You can burn ppl and hex them, fire off Spouts on would be walls and you just recover all the time and never die.
So I would definitely recommend running Pringles Boy instead of Turtle Boy, I just think offensively it's a much better mon all around.

Shoutouts Pringles Boy, the greatest Spouter in AAA.
 
Pikachu @ Light Ball
Ability: Galvanize
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Extreme Speed
- Knock Off
- Volt Switch

This is an absolute meme set, but it works because not a lot of people will pack checks for this thing. Light ball Galvanize Espeed and Return can 2hko almost anything. The only problem is there’s an extremely lacking move set on Pika. Still love it tho

252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Extreme Speed vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Magearna: 178-210 (49 - 57.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252+ Atk Light Ball Galvanize Pikachu Return vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 337-397 (47.9 - 56.4%) -- 85.9% chance to 2HKO

252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Return vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Heatran: 193-228 (50 - 59%) -- 74.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
 
How viable are the sample teams? I want to try out this meta, but I don’t want to be that one noob who uses outdated sample teams
 
manectric-mega.gif

Manectric-Mega @ Manectite
Ability: Electric Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Thunderbolt
- Overheat / Flamethrower
- Hidden Power [Ice]

I've been running Mega Manectric a little recently and I've been pleasantly surprised by how well it's been working for me. It's a nice pivot with a great speed tier and good coverage.

The big question that you have to ask: what can Mega Manectric do over fellow electric types, Tapu Koko and Zeraora, which are both also blazingly fast?

Compared to Koko, it primarily has fire coverage. The extra speed really doesn't do much for it as the only really relevant it outspeeds is... Koko. It also avoid the choice lock Koko usually has to deal with, allowing it to fake out Pokemon such as Tapu Fini who like to play around with Protect to scout for your move of choice. Intimidate post-mega lets it pivot around and helps your team tank hits from threatening physical attackers on switch-in.

Compared to Zeraora I would say it's overall worse, but not necessarily outclassed. It's again not reliant on being Choice or Life Orb locked, and is at its strongest with an item with 0 drawbacks past the teambuilding stage. It's primarily special, which means its pivot move is coming off of its stronger stat. The speed tier difference is actually pretty negligible actually. The ONLY thing between base 135 and 143 is Mega Mewtwo Y (lol) and there are also a couple scarfers (Bulu, Heatran) that land there as well.

Electric Terrain is good for resetting opposing terrains and for boosting your own power, but it's not the only option. Double Intimidate is nice as well, although Mega Manectric can't really abuse it very well beyond forcing a switch. Levitate can allow it to stay in on ground types and Overheat or Hidden Power Ice or avoid hazards on switch-in. Overall I don't think it's very important to Manectric's functionality what the pre-mega ability is, so choose what fits your team.

Mega Manectric appreciates good hazard support, as it switches around a lot. It invites Flash Fire steels in, so something to deal with those, especially Ferrothorn, is appreciated. A fighting type is a good choice, because it can also check Chansey. Scarfed Pokemon can make life difficult for Manectric, so it is recommended to play carefully against Pokemon you suspect may be scarfed until you know whether they are or not. I paired it with a suicide hazard lead and a scarf Regenerator Genesect for a volt-turn core and it's been working well at forcing the needed switches to wear down the opposing team.

Mega Man clearly doesn't fit every team but imo it's a good niche pick thanks to it's great speed tier, good offensive coverage, and access to pivoting and Intimidate post-mega. I recommend y'all try it out!
 
Hello, I'd like to shed some light on a set I've found myself using extremely frequently as a glue mon in aaa. I remember quite a while ago TheCoastsOfToast was building with triage celebi and he was like 3 mons in and at the time I knew absolutely nothing about aaa. My UU ass was like "oh scarf drei would be good for speed control and ghost resist". P sure he tested with jrdn after and jrdn was like "idk why drei is here" or some shit. I still stand by my input of using drei on that team despite not remembering a single mon on the team aside from triage celebi because all of you dickheads are using scarf drei with fuckin mega launcher and adaptability and getting annoyed when it still doesn't do damage like FOOLS.

hydreigon.gif

Hydreigon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 80 Def / 184 SpA / 244 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- U-turn
- Thunder Wave / Toxic / Some random coverage move
Drei's typing is truly under appreciated by you lot and after spending 7 weeks helping prep in ompl I've noticed that like 90% of you assholes don't use ghost resists and rely on random regenvest shits for shit like blacephalon. Regen drie essentially provides a similar glue role that scarf chomp does but w/ a few differences in what it does/doesn't check AND access to U-turn which is huge imo. This set primarily pivots into psychics, ghosts, and a few other random more niche mons (victini and blace being the biggest and most obvious examples), and it's access to U-turn makes it an excellent pivot for breakers that like to come in on random av mons/bulky blanket checks like chansey, snorlax, magearna, etc. A good example of a breaker you can run with this is tinted buzz.

It's speed tier is also good enough to revenge kill a slew of threats like +1 Xurkitree, Naganadel, +1 Mega Gyarados with some chip, etc. If you're running scarf drei in this tier or even in UU where drei thrives it's primarily as a pivot. It's damage output isn't anything crazy and even with shit like Mega Launcher and Adaptability you're not gonna break through any of the regenvest mons. Which makes running these offensive abilities trivial in the first place, regen provides soooo much utility for such a defensive typing with a niche of it's own and on a mon w/ access to U-turn.

Also the last slot you can honestly put a lot of diff things it's super trivial. Thunder Wave has been my choice which iirc Clefable and/or Sylveon. gave me that idea to catch pheal mons like fini and lax off guard, but twave support is also just appreciated assuming you're running a good breaker with this. Toxic can be good probably? Fire coverage is pretty no-brainer but flash fire mons are everywhere and dpulse hits steels hard enough to pressure at least a little bit, or just U-turn lol. Other things like ep/focus blast are also options but it's all very niche and most of the time U-turning is just safer b/c of all the random immunities in this tier.

Thank you all for welcoming me into your community of like 3 players :)
 
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Haven't played Pokemon in a long time but I've been slowly getting back into it on Showdown. On it I discovered that Almost Any Ability is an awesome gamemode but its dense and I'm not great at it yet so I got a question.
Is weather viable in the mode? In particular, Sandstorm. Thundurus-Therian is one of my pet pokemon and I imagined using AAA to give him some ability to buff his speed and make him truly monstrous. While scrolling through Bulbapedia to make sure I hadn't forgotten any important stuff I found that rock types have their spdef boosted by 50% in sand, and my dream of making a Thundurus-Therian w/ Sand Rush + Mega Garchomp w/ Sand Force + Massive SpDef Rock Type Tank Weather Team started. And since its AAA, you could give any pokemon best suited for the role the Sand Stream ability and they could be your primary weather setter. Could it work? Or are other weather types better? Or is weather just not usable at all? Any feedback would be appreciated.

Update: So I've made a couple prototype teams. Thundy-T and Garchomp are on all of them. Thundy has been doing great, no one expects Sand Rush or Hidden Power Ice on him, which has gotten me numerous KOs. Also present on all the teams are a Ferrothorn running Smooth Rock Sand Stream and a weird but pretty decent Water Absorb Doublade tech. I also have a Sand Rush Kabutops on all of them, but I haven't been able to put him to good use. And the final spot is in constant flux. It's goes between Stakataka, Diancie, and Niheligo, depending on the team. All the teams lack a decent way to remove hazards. Kabutops gets Rapid Spin, but rapid spin on a scarf or band set doesn't seem great. The only mons I'm really attached to are Thunderus and Garchomp, as well as at least one Rock type to be a spdef tank, but other then that, anyone have futher suggestions?
 
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TheChoiceScarf said:
Is weather viable in the mode? In particular, Sandstorm.
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Sand seems to be best on balance or stall builds paired with a bulky rock type like Nihilego or Diancie to get the SpDef boost while getting sand chip on the opposing team.
Sand Rush and Sand Force both are relatively outclassed. Sand Rush seems perfectly fine in theory but Swift Swim, Chlorophyll, and Surge Surfer are much more effective as their respective weather/terrain also gives abusers of the abilities boosted water/fire/electric moves. For this reason I would not build around Thundy-T with sand but rain to spam Thunder (flying mons don't get the electric terrain damage boost btw). However if you are using sand balance with a bulky rock type you could try out a Sand Rush mon for speed control.
Sand Force seems like a solid option alongside sand but standard damage boosting abilities like Adapt are better as they don't require sand to work.
 
LorisMasta17 said:
Sand seems to be best on balance or stall builds paired with a bulky rock type like Nihilego or Diancie to get the SpDef boost while getting sand chip on the opposing team.
Sand Rush and Sand Force both are relatively outclassed. Sand Rush seems perfectly fine in theory but Swift Swim, Chlorophyll, and Surge Surfer are much more effective as their respective weather/terrain also gives abusers of the abilities boosted water/fire/electric moves. For this reason I would not build around Thundy-T with sand but rain to spam Thunder (flying mons don't get the electric terrain damage boost btw). However if you are using sand balance with a bulky rock type you could try out a Sand Rush mon for speed control.
Sand Force seems like a solid option alongside sand but standard damage boosting abilities like Adapt are better as they don't require sand to work.
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Thanks for the advice!
 
TheChoiceScarf said:
Haven't played Pokemon in a long time but I've been slowly getting back into it on Showdown. On it I discovered that Almost Any Ability is an awesome gamemode but its dense and I'm not great at it yet so I got a question.
Is weather viable in the mode? In particular, Sandstorm. Thundurus-Therian is one of my pet pokemon and I imagined using AAA to give him some ability to buff his speed and make him truly monstrous. While scrolling through Bulbapedia to make sure I hadn't forgotten any important stuff I found that rock types have their spdef boosted by 50% in sand, and my dream of making a Thundurus-Therian w/ Sand Rush + Mega Garchomp w/ Sand Force + Massive SpDef Rock Type Tank Weather Team started. And since its AAA, you could give any pokemon best suited for the role the Sand Stream ability and they could be your primary weather setter. Could it work? Or are other weather types better? Or is weather just not usable at all? Any feedback would be appreciated.

Update: So I've made a couple prototype teams. Thundy-T and Garchomp are on all of them. Thundy has been doing great, no one expects Sand Rush or Hidden Power Ice on him, which has gotten me numerous KOs. Also present on all the teams are a Ferrothorn running Smooth Rock Sand Stream and a weird but pretty decent Water Absorb Doublade tech. I also have a Sand Rush Kabutops on all of them, but I haven't been able to put him to good use. And the final spot is in constant flux. It's goes between Stakataka, Diancie, and Niheligo, depending on the team. All the teams lack a decent way to remove hazards. Kabutops gets Rapid Spin, but rapid spin on a scarf or band set doesn't seem great. The only mons I'm really attached to are Thunderus and Garchomp, as well as at least one Rock type to be a spdef tank, but other then that, anyone have futher suggestions?
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The major problem with weather teams is that Desoland and PSea are so common due to the immunities and the boosts they provide. PSea Ferro, for example, would completely clear out your Sand and prevent you from ever setting it up. Sand in particular struggles because it doesn't have a perma-variant the way that Sun and Rain do. You can still get the benefits of your opponents Desoland/Psea, should they be running it. Just something to consider. Good luck!
 
The Consort said:
Sand in particular struggles because it doesn't have a perma-variant the way that Sun and Rain do
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On the contrary I think sand gets the better deal here since sand teams are the least reliant on having their weather active to perform. So in a matchup where you can't weather up you don't autolose. The universal special defence boost that sand provides also gives more value for the setter than other weathers normally do, so having a sand spd wall with maybe an abuser in the back can be good (you can run half sand team whereas you don't typically see half rain or sun).
Other weather teams don't typically run a primal weather as that would be counter productive.

TheChoiceScarf also I don't know if you're aware, but you can do stuff like that in AAA.
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Garchomp-Mega @ Garchompite
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Fire Blast
- Swords Dance
This means the same mon can set and abuse weather (rain typically does the same with Swampert)
It's still best to have a proper setter in a weather team but a good secondary setter can be really good, especially since primal weather setters will have a hard time switching on this guy (mainly victini, volcarona and heatran).

Someone was talking to me the other day about RegenVest Ttar in sand. You can tank moves like that: 252 SpA Alakazam-Mega Focus Blast vs. 224 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Tyranitar in Sand: 212-252 (53.4 - 63.4%)
The Good thing with this set it's that it's good regardless of weather or not sand is up, it's just better with sand up.

As far as Thundy on Sand goes, Xurkitree is honestly usually a better weather abuser because of it's much better special attack and better set up move. The extra speed is seldom needed. Running Thundy is probably fine but it has opportunity cost.
Worth keeping in mind that Sand doesn't damage Sand Rush mons (or at least that's how it used to work) so you'll be instantly revealing your ability.

For the most part it's up to you to see what works best for you, Sand is much more flexible than rain is as far as what they can run,so just experiment.
 
The Consort said:
The major problem with weather teams is that Desoland and PSea are so common due to the immunities and the boosts they provide. PSea Ferro, for example, would completely clear out your Sand and prevent you from ever setting it up. Sand in particular struggles because it doesn't have a perma-variant the way that Sun and Rain do. You can still get the benefits of your opponents Desoland/Psea, should they be running it. Just something to consider. Good luck!
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I see. That'll be something to keep in mind during teambuilding. Thanks for the advice!

motherlove said:
On the contrary I think sand gets the better deal here since sand teams are the least reliant on having their weather active to perform. So in a matchup where you can't weather up you don't autolose. The universal special defence boost that sand provides also gives more value for the setter than other weathers normally do, so having a sand spd wall with maybe an abuser in the back can be good (you can run half sand team whereas you don't typically see half rain or sun).
Other weather teams don't typically run a primal weather as that would be counter productive.

TheChoiceScarf also I don't know if you're aware, but you can do stuff like that in AAA.
445-m.png

Garchomp-Mega @ Garchompite
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Fire Blast
- Swords Dance
This means the same mon can set and abuse weather (rain typically does the same with Swampert)
It's still best to have a proper setter in a weather team but a good secondary setter can be really good, especially since primal weather setters will have a hard time switching on this guy (mainly victini, volcarona and heatran).

Someone was talking to me the other day about RegenVest Ttar in sand. You can tank moves like that: 252 SpA Alakazam-Mega Focus Blast vs. 224 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Tyranitar in Sand: 212-252 (53.4 - 63.4%)
The Good thing with this set it's that it's good regardless of weather or not sand is up, it's just better with sand up.

As far as Thundy on Sand goes, Xurkitree is honestly usually a better weather abuser because of it's much better special attack and better set up move. The extra speed is seldom needed. Running Thundy is probably fine but it has opportunity cost.
Worth keeping in mind that Sand doesn't damage Sand Rush mons (or at least that's how it used to work) so you'll be instantly revealing your ability.

For the most part it's up to you to see what works best for you, Sand is much more flexible than rain is as far as what they can run,so just experiment.
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This was really useful, I appreciate it!
 
I just want to ask why Mega Metagross is unbanned. It just looks like another nasty combination of power, bulk and speed with numerous options to either grant it immunity or boost its power even more. not a pro at this meta but just generally confused when i saw megagross in ladder
 
The general offensive and defensive power of AAA are high enough that Mega Metagross is no longer head-and-shoulders above the competition. It can use a pre-Mega ability for something like Download or Drizzle to supplement it offensively or defensively, but it's still locked into Tough Claws upon Mega evolving and its movepool is still less than ideal.
 
I have been playing this gamemode online and have been enjoying it untill I found out Unburden is not banned! Belly Drum Unburden Kommo-o is broken! Sure Tapu Koko threatens it with return on Pixilate sets but if it sets up on a different pokemon, Koko is no longer a check. This stratergy is only conterable by Unaware pokemon and I feel that if a strategy forces teams to have an Unaware pokemon on a team that it is too restrictive. I could be completely wrong but I thought I would bring it up because I was enjoying this gamemode until now
 
SamoSST said:
I have been playing this gamemode online and have been enjoying it untill I found out Unburden is not banned! Belly Drum Unburden Kommo-o is broken! Sure Tapu Koko threatens it with return on Pixilate sets but if it sets up on a different pokemon, Koko is no longer a check. This stratergy is only conterable by Unaware pokemon and I feel that if a strategy forces teams to have an Unaware pokemon on a team that it is too restrictive. I could be completely wrong but I thought I would bring it up because I was enjoying this gamemode until now
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And how is Koko not a check? Tapu Koko still has the ability to run Pixilated Quick Attack, which will kill Kommo-o after it boosts itself.
 
So Beast Boost is available and I've been doing some theorymoning that I'll test out tomorrow. I've been pairing Beast Boost with Scarf for these:

Alakazam @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast

Garchomp @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang
- Stone Edge

Latios (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dragon Pulse
- Surf
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball

Choice Scarf + Beast Boost makes for a nice revenge killer/snowball sweeper. What do you think?

Edit: Why am I not just using Moxie/Soul Heart? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
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BlazinDelphox said:
So Beast Boost is available and I've been doing some theorymoning that I'll test out tomorrow. I've been pairing Beast Boost with Scarf for these:

Alakazam @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast

Garchomp @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang
- Stone Edge

Latios (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dragon Pulse
- Surf
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball

Choice Scarf + Beast Boost makes for a nice revenge killer/snowball sweeper. What do you think?
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Mew @ Mewnium Z
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast

This set might be beneficial to you. I've seen this a bit, and it can be quite effective. After a NP boost, little lives, and you start racking up Speed, which goes well with Psychic Terrain from Mewnium Z. I would try this out. A slightly different take on Beast Boost.
 
What options does stall have for checking Naganadel? Primordial sea Magearna completely walls it, but I'm wondering if there are other options (even if they're not as good at checking Naganadel, so long as they're sufficient).
 
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