Ladder Balanced Hackmons

Contrary and Simple were really easy to handle if you were prepared for it. And everyone who knew what they were doing was. But when they started spamming them, it could get annoying having to play using only one or two members of your team because nothing else can handle them. And if your counters got KOed by a crit or somesuch, Prankster D-Bond is only going to save you so much when they're spamming six Contrary/Simple abusers. Or Prankster Spore when they're all holding Lum Berries.

It made some games come down to a case of "If they don't crit, I win because they can't break my defenses. If they do crit, I lose because the rest of my team is designed to handle other threats that'd steamroll me otherwise."

Topsy-Turvy at least discourages that by punishing the hell out of someone trying to abuse those two abilities (or Evasion BP spamming... ewww).
 
In my opinion, Topsy-Turvy is fine; it is reflected by magic bounce and lately I have been seeing a lot of magic bounce arceus so you are probably better off running heart swap. Although it is nice to use it on Contrary and Simple so I suppose you could run both.
 
isnt parting shot also bounced back? switching out the defender?

ultimate anti set-up mon guys: prankster with topsy turvy and parting shot

if topsy turvy is bounced back, use parting shot and they switch, gg.
 
So, I was looking at the thread for Electrify where they were lamenting that no Ground-types or fast Volt Absorb/Motor Drive/Lightningrod Pokemon got the move. I'm not sure if it's Magic Bounced, but here are two potential Electrify movesets for if it is (first) and if it isn't (second).

Mold Breaker Dugtrio (fastest Ground-type) @ ??? (Life Orb?)
Electrify
Taunt (to stop people from just setting up)
Two good physical coverage moves.

Otherwise, you could use

Volt Absorb Deoxys-S / Prankster Groudon (same concept: get out a fast Electrify on a Pokemon that can't be hurt by Electric-type moves; I picked Groudon because it's the Ground-type with the highest Attack or Special Attack stat) @ ??? (Life Orb)
Electrify
Parting Shot for the MB phazing?
Two good physical coverage moves (Groudon) / any coverage moves (Deo-S)

It's not very well thought out, just centralized around the concept of "make the enemy's moves not hurt you with Electrify".

Thoughts?
 
In my opinion, Topsy-Turvy is fine; it is reflected by magic bounce and lately I have been seeing a lot of magic bounce arceus so you are probably better off running heart swap. Although it is nice to use it on Contrary and Simple so I suppose you could run both.
You can just force out any Magic Bouncer with the common move Parting Shot, so as long you know it's a Magic Bouncer, it shouldn't be a problem

Edit: didn't see MJB's post
 
So has anyone been thinking about Trick or Treat's potential uses?

I could imagine it having some fun use considering it adds up to the typing.
Pairing it with a pursuit or any other dark type move could certainly give some nuinsance factor
 
So, I was looking at the thread for Electrify where they were lamenting that no Ground-types or fast Volt Absorb/Motor Drive/Lightningrod Pokemon got the move. I'm not sure if it's Magic Bounced, but here are two potential Electrify movesets for if it is (first) and if it isn't (second).

Mold Breaker Dugtrio (fastest Ground-type) @ ??? (Life Orb?)
Electrify
Taunt (to stop people from just setting up)
Two good physical coverage moves.

Otherwise, you could use

Volt Absorb Deoxys-S / Prankster Groudon (same concept: get out a fast Electrify on a Pokemon that can't be hurt by Electric-type moves; I picked Groudon because it's the Ground-type with the highest Attack or Special Attack stat) @ ??? (Life Orb)
Electrify
Parting Shot for the MB phazing?
Two good physical coverage moves (Groudon) / any coverage moves (Deo-S)

It's not very well thought out, just centralized around the concept of "make the enemy's moves not hurt you with Electrify".

Thoughts?

These are all very good ideas. I use Lightningrod Kyogre in the hopes that my opponent will be stupid and not switch out. Then I can boost without being impeded at all. If Electrify isn't bounced by Magic Bounce (not sure if it is or not), by the way, you don't necessarily need to use Mold Breaker on Dugtrio; instead, you could probably give it another interesting ability.

As for the Trick or Treat post above, I agree it could be fun to use, but people around here generally don't like opponent-type-changing strategies, like my friend's Forest's Curse + ice attack one that was posted a page or two back.
 
Electrify only works on the turn it is used. It has no practical applications in BH except on something like Volt Absorb Deoxys-S or a Toxic stalling Groudon (WHY).
 
Probably better with Lightning Rod or Motor Drive for a free boost.

Also, Parting Shot is stopped by sub. So if you're relying on Parting Shot to follow-up phaze those who bounce your Topsy and they set up sub on that turn... well... hope you have a back-up plan.
 
Back to the topic of mege-evos, I believe that the mega stones are a very nice equalizer. Mega Pokémon have stats rivaling that of deoxys-(any). Sure, we should be able to change their abilities, but they need some sort of balance. Hackmons is about hacking the Pokémon themselves, not the fundamentals of battle mechanics such as STABmons and Æ does.

EDIT: Btw about topsy-turvy, I believe it is supposed to be blocked by sub, yet it isn't on PS. I don't know if anyone here can do anything about it, but there you go.
 
Also, Parting Shot is stopped by sub. So if you're relying on Parting Shot to follow-up phaze those who bounce your Topsy and they set up sub on that turn... well... hope you have a back-up plan.
Are you sure that bounce isn't prioritized over sub when determining what parting shot does?

Back to the topic of mege-evos, I believe that the mega stones are a very nice equalizer. Mega Pokémon have stats rivaling that of deoxys-(any). Sure, we should be able to change their abilities, but they need some sort of balance. Hackmons is about hacking the Pokémon themselves, not the fundamentals of battle mechanics such as STABmons and Æ does.
Mega Pokemon have stats rivaling Deoxys? Some do. Lucario has decent stats, and so does Garchomp. These are no doubt good in the metagame. Deoxys fit right into the gen 5 meta without imbalancing it.

On the other hand, we have a Pokemon that was already über-level, Mewtwo, getting a mega evolution (or two!). Mewtwo could contend with any Pokemon in the BH meta needing to mega evolve. Is it broken right now? We will see. One thing I want to make clear, though, is that "Mega" Pokemon like Ampharos and Mawile aren't by any means overpowered. From my view, Mewtwo are the only mega forms we should even consider banning right now, and even then I think we should wait a month or two to see if they are actually broken or if stall teams and others merely haven't discovered their counters yet.

How is the feeling on mega evolutions with banned abilities? To clarify, I think that two scenarios are most likely to be the mega evolution mechanics with hacked abilities:

1. Pokemon that mega evolve automatically change their ability to the legal mega evo ability, as they would if they had a standard ability. This could be testable by skill swapping to a Pokemon that then mega evolves.

2. If a Pokemon is hacked to automatically assume its mega form without requiring a stone or turn to evolve, it can have whatever ability it likes hacked onto it.

If this is the case, then what will we do about Pokemon like Mawile, Medicham, and Gengar who have BH legal abilities (or could at least have them) in their standard forme, but can mega evolve into Pokemon with illegal abilities?
 
No Redless, sub is not prioritized over bounce.

As for the mega v. deo situation, mega lucario, blaziken, gengar, alakazam, and more are better than, say, deoxys attack because they have far mor than 20/20 defenses. This is what I'm saying. In addition to towering attack, they have at least mediocre defenses, outclassing deoxys attack and maybe even deoxys speed (though the latter is less likely). If we keep the mega stones (battle mechanics, remember, not hacked Pokémon), then we could bring these threats down a notch, and even eliminate the threat of poison heal mega2(x/y).
 
Meanwhile, if this doesn't show why Pure Power/Huge Power needs to be banned, then I'm not sure what will...

252+ Atk Regigigas Return vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mew: 214-253 (52.97 - 62.62%) -- 99.61% chance to 2HKO

252+ Atk Pure Power Regigigas Tackle vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mew: 210-247 (51.98 - 61.13%) -- 94.92% chance to 2HKO

...that's just wrong.
 
When did Deoxys become the gold standard for anything? Last I checked Deoxys S was mediocre, and the others were outright bad. Having stats "on par with Deoxys" really doesn't mean much.
 
No Redless, sub is not prioritized over bounce.

As for the mega v. deo situation, mega lucario, blaziken, gengar, alakazam, and more are better than, say, deoxys attack because they have far mor than 20/20 defenses. This is what I'm saying. In addition to towering attack, they have at least mediocre defenses, outclassing deoxys attack and maybe even deoxys speed (though the latter is less likely). If we keep the mega stones (battle mechanics, remember, not hacked Pokémon), then we could bring these threats down a notch, and even eliminate the threat of poison heal mega2(x/y).

Apart from both Mega Mewtwo, which might need to be looked at, Mega evolutions should just simply be treated as the ubers of this generation IMO. Most of the offensive ones, while sporting really good attacking stats, have pretty bad bulk while the bulkier ones are slow and able to be dealt with. There's nothing on the mega list that would really centralize the tier, and adding them in without utterly crippling them by removing an item slot just adds diversity.


And deoxys s is great dude.

It's completely outclassed by anything bulkier as a mold breaker. Base 110-130 speed is honestly enough to outspeed most things, and what you sacrifice in outspeeding the other 5% of the tier you get in bulk that can take more than two hits.
 
Last edited:
Well, I guess your request was granted. Anyway, which megas besides the obvious *cough* Mewtwo *cough* are going to be viable?
So far, it looks like Mega Gengar is looking pretty good, followed by Aggron, Tyranitar, and Gyarados. Megengar is a pretty nice fast special sweeper, and then we have a little more oomph with Mega Alakazam, though it has worse defenses. Megaggron is looking like a great physical wall so far in the metagame, while megyarados is a decent special wall. Tyranitar will probably see quite a bit of use as bulky offense (at least by me), and megardevoir can be an alright offense fairy. It has worse defenses than Xerneas, but 35 more points in base special attack. I know that both lcass and I have used a prankster quiversub set on our gardevoirs.
 
I've yet to test many of the Megas but for the most part all of them look like they have some potential aside from Abomasnow, Banette, Kangaskhan and Medicham.
 
Mega Blaziken will likely supplant Darmitan and Entei in their roles of smacking things really hard with V-Create. For comparison...

Megiken: 80/160/80/130/80/100
Darm: 105/140/55/30/55/95
Entei: 115/115/85/90/75/100

Not to mention, Megiken has a secondary STAB it can use that gives it nifty coverage before dipping into non-STAB attacks. But I suppose Entei's still an option if you really need more bulk, however. But there's no reason to use Darm over Megiken that I can see.


Meanwhile, Mega Aerodactyl will, in turn, likely supplant Archeops and regular Aerodactyl for Magic Guard Head Smash shennanigans.

Megadactyl: 80/135/85/70/95/150
Regulactyl: 80/105/65/60/75/130
Archeops: 75/140/65/112/65/110

Megadactyl is slightly weaker than Archeops but exchanges that for higher bulk and much higher speed. Though I suppose Archeops is an option if you really need that +5 base attack or want to go mixed offense for some reason.
 
I think he meant the rediculous specialization of deoxys, not saying that they were good. And deoxys s is great dude.

Deoxys S is the most overused Pokemon in Balanced Hackmons. Literally every single halfway decent team is prepared for it. Furthermore, with the advent of Defog, stacking a bunch of hazards is really not that threatening. Sleep is easily blocked by Poison Heal, which leaves Trick as the only really threatening thing Deoxys-S does... which other mons do better.
 
Deo-S makes a really great lure for Bouncers if you put anything other than Moldy on it though.


Anyway, some gimmicky stuff I discovered that could have potential applications in the right teams/circumstances.

Nature Power changes type based on the terrain. Misty Terrain = Moon Blast. Grassy Terrain = Energy Ball. Electric Terrain = Thunderbolt. A Prankster NP set could use those terrains to change their coverage while providing team support (Misty is probably the best option there... probably). Or if you want to be really gimmicky, a set with NP/Misty/Grassy/Electric.

Also, Secret Power. 30% paralysis normally and under Electric Terrain. 30% Sp. A drop with Misty. But the real gem here is 30% Sleep with Grassy. Combine with Serene Grace and you have a 60% chance sleep that bypasses Bounce and Coat. Or Infiltrator for a 30% shot at sleeping stuff behind Subs.

Dragon Rush has perfect accuracy and double power if the opponent uses Minimize. So that's another way to smack people trying to abuse evasion boosts.

Hex also went up to BP 65. So that'd be BP 130 vs. statused targets. Shame it doesn't affect Gigas and the like, but I suppose you could always run Trick or Treat as well.

I don't know how this'll be implemented in the simulator, but as max recording Chatter is supposed to have 100% chance to confuse. (Last I tested it, it wasn't confusing at all so it might not have been implemented since the in-simulator text claimed 100% confusion). Combine with Gale Wings to induce rage upon your opponent.
 
Code:
secondary: {
                        chance: 100,
                        volatileStatus: 'confusion'
                },
Looks like PS has Chatter right. Rayquaza fun times anyone?
 
Back
Top