Battle Maison Discussion & Records

[GG Unit]

But Yanmega 3 won't wake up if you take away it's lum berry. Just yawning first turn and then tricking 2nd would guarantee the sleep turn. So, just use this at every lead non-frisk yanmega. Shouldn't this work. You're the expert so i'm probably wrong, please explain it to me if that is the case

With Trick, sure, but without Knock Off you'll be regularly placed into compromising situations against leads like Espeon and Mismagius.

NoCheese , you can go ahead and put my 130 streak up there. I'm not sure I'd even want my inevitable 200 streak to go on the records board because it's just a complete copy of GG Unit 's team lol.

But here's the 130 picture:

Hide

I took it when I got back home earlier, and I mentioned before that I had 100 wins at the time using the TruAnt team, so that lines up. I did save the battle video of the loss (which is rife with misplays - I promise I'm not netting all these wins with sheer luck; while I usually play well, I do make really poor decisions at times and often suffer the results): QGMG-WWWW-WWXU-Q7TJ.

I say "at the time" with regards to the TruAnt team because I decided to play some more again this afternoon and ended up losing at 106. Enemy Floatzel killed Durant without letting it get off an Entrainment due to Protect, and I haven't really dealt with that situation before (I have faced enemy Protectors but they all allowed Entrainment at some point) so I kind of had no idea what to do and made some poor decisions. I didn't save the video though because I was mad at myself and it's full of a shitton of misplays too probably. I suppose I could have used it for the sake of mock battles (what do you do when you fail to get Entrainment off?? Cloyster can't survive enough attacks to get up the needed Shell Smashes against a Floatzel and I dunno that Drapion could deal with it well enough apart from stalling out Waterfall but...) but when I'm pissed off like I was I don't consider these things and just want to forget it happened.

But whatever it was, something about this loss flipped the switch that has been leading me to obsessively, feverishly play the Maison with every iota of free time I have and neglect my studies because of it, and now I don't care anymore. It can wait. And I 100% mean it this time. I'm going to start again this weekend (even though I have my Italian final, my last final, on Monday because whatever, I'm one of the two best students in the class) and hope I can resolve 200 wins by the following weekend, when I leave for Italy proper.

if Floatzel's first three moves were Protect-Waterfall-Protect, my plan was to switch to Cloyster and switch back to Durant. Waterfall + Low Kick does enough to Durant to make Floatzel not Protect the following turn. That's not flawless - if Low Kick crits on the switch, Durant may be in Aqua Jet KO range if the damage rolls leading up to that were high enough, and I distinctly remember a time a Floatzel "predicted" it would get a necessary Aqua Jet crit to KO a 30+% health Durant. Even in those cases, Drapion was able to set up by getting into an alternating Protect loop with Floatzel, which goes a long way towards being able to stall out Waterfall.

 

[sunzet-therian forme]

Well, I could switch back to Knock off. Knock off is useful in many ways such as Flinching focus punches(Mainly Breloom's as you wanna get rid of it's orb ASAP) and taking care of frail ghost\Psychic types. The main one that knock off would be useful against seems like mismagius as it carries perish song which forces drapion to switch and lose all its boost and liepard at least 2HKOs it(I'll double check on that). Trick, on the other hand doesn't stop focus punches or in any way help against Espeon or Mismagius, but it is priority, doesn't make you worry about Static, Flame body etc., and fails sucker punch. Knock off seems slightly better now that you mention it, but trick is pretty good too. I guess it's my decision Espeon, Mismagius, Breloom or Yanmega and not having to worry about contact hax which happens 100 percent of the time you hit a Static, Flame body, Effect spore you name it user and trick actually takes care of Breloom also as durants ev'd to take it's crit Focus Punch. So maybe trick is better to stick with, then again maybe not. hmmm... Knock off seems so useful, but so does Trick. Any opinions? Please share.

 

[cant say]

I lost my Dragonite/Aegislash/MKhan streak that I posted a shot of 100 wins on the last page at battle 131, for a streak of 130. Can't remember the exact playout of the battle (my DS is upstairs and if I go get it I'll be tempted to start playing again but I can't because I've already put off studying for my music history final enough out of addiction to this damn game) but I do remember it ended up with last poke Kangaskhan against a last poke Unfezant. I hit it with Sucker Punch but it doesn't KO, leaving Unfezant in the red, as Unfezant uses Fly which I am unable to do anything about and hits me... but doesn't kill! So I hit Sucker Punch again like "whatever man nothing can stop me now"

except Brightpowder

Why Sucker Punch? Mega Kang is faster than Unfezant4 so you could have just gone for Return. It doesn't OHKO but does 81-97% damage, and considering you went for Sucker Punch I would assume that the Unfezant had already taken some prior damage. In the future, it's worth checking out the Maison Pokemon sets and running damage calcs when you aren't sure. But still, getting Bright Powder haxed is pretty unfortunate :(

 

[GG Unit]

Well, I could switch back to Knock off. Knock off is useful in many ways such as Flinching focus punches(Mainly Breloom's as you wanna get rid of it's orb ASAP) and taking care of frail ghost\Psychic types. The main one that knock off would be useful against seems like mismagius as it carries perish song which forces drapion to switch and lose all its boost and liepard at least 2HKOs it(I'll double check on that). Trick, on the other hand doesn't stop focus punches or in any way help against Espeon or Mismagius, but it is priority, doesn't make you worry about Static, Flame body etc., and fails sucker punch. Knock off seems slightly better now that you mention it, but trick is pretty good too. I guess it's my decision Espeon, Mismagius, Breloom or Yanmega and not having to worry about contact hax which happens 100 percent of the time you hit a Static, Flame body, Effect spore you name it user and trick actually takes care of Breloom also as durants ev'd to take it's crit Focus Punch. So maybe trick is better to stick with, then again maybe not. hmmm... Knock off seems so useful, but so does Trick. Any opinions? Please share.

Using Knock Off and getting Effect Spored on turn 1 and KOed with the 2nd Focus Punch turn 2 is the same outcome as using Trick turn 1. Zapdos 2 is a concern regardless of Liepard's or Whimsicott's move choice. Against anything else with a contact ability or Sucker Punch you can use whichever moves you want as long as Liepard faints.

 

[Altissimo]

Why Sucker Punch? Mega Kang is faster than Unfezant4 so you could have just gone for Return. It doesn't OHKO but does 81-97% damage, and considering you went for Sucker Punch I would assume that the Unfezant had already taken some prior damage. In the future, it's worth checking out the Maison Pokemon sets and running damage calcs when you aren't sure. But still, getting Bright Powder haxed is pretty unfortunate :(

Oh, no, I always check sets, and always run damage calcs if I'm unsure. (In fact I went through and calced Cloyster's +6 Icicle Spear on every single post-40 set and wrote down the ones I couldn't kill with Icicle Spear.) But when I wrote up that description of the battle I hadn't actually re-watched it and was writing by memory, and watching the video this is how it went: Kanga is out with about 60% and kills Gourgeist, Unfezant comes out, Kanga uses Return and doesn't KO, Unfezant uses Fly and doesn't KO Kanga either, Kanga uses Return and misses with Brightpowder, which seals the match since Kanga doesn't survive a second Fly. The only reason it ended up last poke Kanga vs Gourgeist and mystery Unfezant was because I misplayed earlier in the match, but still, to lose to a timely Brightpowder miss really ticked me off.

GG Unit , now that you say that, I do remember seeing that response to Floatzel somewhere, but I'd forgotten. Alas :( hopefully I will play better next time

 

[VaporeonIce]

Espeon isn't a problem regardless of which move you choose; just switch to Durant and immediately KO it with X-Scissor. Then you can switch back to Liepard, which only puts you in a compromised position if the opponent has Substitute or Speed Boost; this strategy against Espeon hasn't failed me yet, and I don't think any of my successes against it have been due to properties that are unique to Whimsicott.

Without Knock Off, I see Breloom leads as being hugely likely to make you lose. If you use Trick, you'll get the Toxic Orb and it will KO you with Focus Punch, leaving it free to use Protect against Durant on its first turn out and set up a Substitute on Durant's loafing turn. Knock Off does leave you more vulnerable to Yanmega some of the times when it comes out, but I think Breloom will be a problem for you EVERY time that it comes out unless you run Knock Off.

My strategy against Mismagius was always to Taunt it on turn 1, switch to Drapion turn 2, and stall with Sub+Protect until it uses Perish Song and switches out. If Taunt misses and it uses Mean Look, I just Encore that until it runs out of PP, wait until it uses Perish Song, and use Memento on the last turn. If it uses another non-attacking move on turn 1, I Encore that instead, then switch to Drapion. The Knock Off strategy should work fine too (since it's a 2HKO), but be aware that if you miss on turn 1 and it uses Perish Song, you'll want to switch out (probably to Drapion) on turn 2. Even if it uses Mean Look as you switch to Drapion, you can just switch Drapion out on the turn after Mismagius switches out. If Mismagius uses Mean Look on turn 1 after a miss, just keep spamming Knock Off.

Note that, while I think Knock Off handles single threats better than Trick (as described above), I'm somewhat worried about how it handles combinations of threats. For example, Knock Off can be used to OHKO a lead Alakazam 4, but then you're down to your Sash and might be in trouble if Medicham 4 comes out next (because it might Fake Out to KO Liepard then Detect against Durant...probably not, because HJK should be a guaranteed OHKO, but the AI occasionally makes weird choices with Protect/Detect). Lead Espeon is actually in the same boat as lead Alakazam, because Espeon outspeeds Liepard. Against Manectric 4, it's likely to miss with at least one of its Thunders, so you'll want to use Knock Off while it sleeps and then Encore it until it KO's Liepard. Braviary 3 might use U-Turn against Liepard (since the AI seems to prefer super-effective OHKOs to non-super effective OHKOs), so be aware of that possibility.

You don't outspeed Thundurus 4 and Tornadus 4, and while they'll probably try to KO you with Focus Blast rather than using Prankster Taunt against you, be aware that Focus Blast misses can result in Liepard fainting on the same turn that your Taunt wears off. You'll want to play it like this:

Turn 1: Liepard uses Taunt, Thundurus uses Focus Blast (hits)
Turn 2: Liepard uses Yawn, Thundurus uses Focus Blast (misses)
Turn 3: Liepard uses Encore, Thundurus uses Focus Blast (misses, falls asleep, Taunt wears off)
Turn 4: Switch to Durant

It's pretty obvious what to do if Thundurus hits on turn 3. Note that, if either of them do use Taunt, you're pretty screwed, but we'll just have to assume they don't do that.

 

[sunzet-therian forme]

With Alakazam or espeon or whatever, with potential backup threats where I need full health, It's probably best to play it safe and stick with the usual yawn, focus blast, whatever, focus blast. Though I do need to watch out for focus blast misses against liepard as Focus blast will OHKO Durant.

Looking at all the things said, it seems like knock off wins the battle. So i'll stick with it. Thanks to everybody!

 

[NoCheese]

Espeon isn't a problem regardless of which move you choose; just switch to Durant and immediately KO it with X-Scissor.

This is rather embarrassing to admit, but during my Durant / Cloyster / Garchomp streak, my default strategy against lead Espeon never involved the shockingly obvious "use X-Scissor and take the guaranteed OHKO you dummy." Thankfully, this didn't cost me my streak (bad play into Perish Song did), but though I haven't played a Durant team for a long while, my missing of the obvious here irks me.

 

[GG Unit]

Espeon isn't a problem regardless of which move you choose; just switch to Durant and immediately KO it with X-Scissor. Then you can switch back to Liepard, which only puts you in a compromised position if the opponent has Substitute or Speed Boost; this strategy against Espeon hasn't failed me yet, and I don't think any of my successes against it have been due to properties that are unique to Whimsicott.

That seems unnecessarily risky when Whimsicott can just Memento any Espeon and let Drapion set up. Either way, Whimsicott has a better toolset for switching back in to something with higher defenses and Memento, whereas Liepard will almost always only get only one attack against that 2nd Pokemon.

 

[VaporeonIce]

That seems unnecessarily risky when Whimsicott can just Memento any Espeon and let Drapion set up. Either way, Whimsicott has a better toolset for switching back in to something with higher defenses and Memento, whereas Liepard will almost always only get only one attack against that 2nd Pokemon.

Does Memento work against Magic Bounce?

EDIT: Huh, apparently it does. A -2 Espeon does a maximum of about 20% against Drapion with Dazzling Gleam, which is certainly low enough to set up. The problem is, you either sacrifice health, or you set up really slowly (one boost every four turns, in a Sub/Protect/Acupressure/Protect cycle). Slow set-up means that Espeon is likely to be faster than Drapion when it runs out of Dazzling Gleams, giving it chances to get SpDef drops with Shadow Ball or confusion with Signal Beam. Obviously, its odds of winning are still extremely slim (I can just switch Drapion out if necessary), but I prefer the faster approach of just getting the OHKO with Durant. It helps that Espeon is Set B, and the only Substitute user in Set B is Mandibuzz (I think), who I can just Taunt and beat without using Memento. The only Sub users on Hex Maniac teams are Spiritomb and Gothitelle; Spiritomb can be taken out by burning up its Sucker Punch PP with Taunt and then using Taunt to get it to kill itself with Struggle, and Gothitelle can't touch Drapion. That leaves Eeveelution teams, which only have Leafeon 2 as a Sub user, who is unlikely to come out against Durant due to Durant resisting all of its moves. So in my mind, there's basically no risk to letting Durant KO Espeon, and it makes battles run a little quicker than if I use Memento against it. I suppose a Set B trainer could send out Mienshao 4, which I hadn't thought of before, so maybe I'll use Memento against Set B trainers who lead with Espeon from now on.

NoCheese , I don't think the "OHKO Espeon" strategy is nearly as good with a lead Durant. When you have a Focus Sash lead, you can afford to switch out Durant after it gets the KO. If you lead with Durant, you have to switch to one of your sweepers, then either try to switch back to Durant or sacrifice your sweeper. Sometimes that will work out okay (if the opponent sends out an Electric-type and you can switch to Garchomp, for example), but other times, I'd think it could be pretty catastrophic (hi, Walrein 4). If the second Pokemon is Speed Boost Yanmega, you're likely to be eating a bunch of flinches. So perhaps your intuition knew better than to go for the straight OHKO on Espeon :)

 

[GG Unit]

The faster way leaves you in a bad spot against any self-KOer that comes out 2nd; I'd be more worried about something like Lickilicky or Muk since you can at least try to keep Mienshao alive for longer by letting it break your Sub a few times. With Knock Off, Liepard can even deal with 2nd Pokemon Sub users more elegantly than Whimsicott does. Even when using a Durant lead, OHKOing Espeon is definitely better than sacrificing Durant just so Cloyster can get to +2 and 1 HP. Speed Boost Yanmega is probably the worst lead against a Durant + 2 team, so if you get doubly screwed with Espeon followed by Speed Boost Yanmega it's just not your day.

After turn 1 against -2 Espeon, Drapion's at like 60% health with a Sub and doesn't have to take an unsubbed hit for another 30-ish turns. If it's not out of Dazzling Gleam and Signal Beam PP by then, that means it gave you some free Acupressure turns by using Shadow Ball a bunch.

 

[Altissimo]

re: OHKO Espeon: Playing Durant/Cloyster/Drapion, it's definitely true (at least from my experience) that a fully set up Drapion is much more valuable than a set up Cloyster, owing to Drapion having defense(s) and evasion boosts in addition to attack and speed, Sub, and Battle Armor, which means a set up Drapion is pretty much unstoppable. If Durant is KO'd after its first Entrainment when I'm playing the team, I go straight to Drapion and set it up on the Entrainment, because I know it has a better chance of beating the enemy and two mystery Pokémon than -6 defenses, Sash Cloyster. (On the other hand, if Durant doesn't die to the first hit, then the option exists to bring it back in and Entrain the opposition of Cloyster should die after fully setting it up, so I usually opt for Cloyster when Durant lives - it's faster, anyway.)

By the same token, if Durant wants to attack the opponent's lead (which I've only done on Exeggutor4 after seeing some comment about it somewhere - none of the other Explosion leads have consistent attack patterns once Cloyster's out, and I never give Exeggutor room to try it because of what I read about it KO'ing, but I would do it on Espeon too since I also saw some comment about that), then I'll switch into Cloyster the following turn, knowing it can take a hit with Sash, and back to Durant - who should be able to take a hit, outspeed, and hit with Entrainment. Even if the opposition is something like Walrein4 that kills Durant on the switch back in/Entrainment misses, Durant actually has the ability to stall out its attacking PP via Sub, Protect, Lefties, and the 30% accuracy of the OHKO moves, and then can easily set up on useless Rest/Sleep Talk to get itself fully boosted, even with only a 1 HP Cloyster in reserve and facing one of the most horrible Pokémon in the Maison.

That being said, all of this does depend on what the AI sends out following the KO'd Exeggutor (or Espeon, but the only time I met one as a lead so far I forgot I was supposed to kill it with X-Scissor and Entrained anyway, it had Synchronize) and what moves it knows. There's also the fact that Exeggutor and Espeon are both Psychic, which means they can show up as leads on Psychic/Ghost teams - and I'm pretty sure I once switched Durant, after KO'ing an Exeggutor lead, into Drapion and killed both backups with unboosted Knock Off. None of this is a perfect strategy, obviously, but may as well take an Explosion lead down with an X-Scissor that outspeeds when the alternative would be it using Explosion to hurt Durant and kill itself, or worse, ending the first turn against Espeon with no Entrainment, Espy at full health, and Durant weakened... I guess. This is all only based on my experiences and what I've read about Durant leads and specifically the Durant/Cloyster/Drapion team in the past. And certainly working with Garchomp would be a little more risky than "uber" Drapion, so I don't have much to say about that.

 

[GG Unit]

re: OHKO Espeon: Playing Durant/Cloyster/Drapion, it's definitely true (at least from my experience) that a fully set up Drapion is much more valuable than a set up Cloyster, owing to Drapion having defense(s) and evasion boosts in addition to attack and speed, Sub, and Battle Armor, which means a set up Drapion is pretty much unstoppable. If Durant is KO'd after its first Entrainment when I'm playing the team, I go straight to Drapion and set it up on the Entrainment, because I know it has a better chance of beating the enemy and two mystery Pokémon than -6 defenses, Sash Cloyster. (On the other hand, if Durant doesn't die to the first hit, then the option exists to bring it back in and Entrain the opposition of Cloyster should die after fully setting it up, so I usually opt for Cloyster when Durant lives - it's faster, anyway.)

By the same token, if Durant wants to attack the opponent's lead (which I've only done on Exeggutor4 after seeing some comment about it somewhere - none of the other Explosion leads have consistent attack patterns once Cloyster's out, and I never give Exeggutor room to try it because of what I read about it KO'ing), then I'll switch into Cloyster the following turn, knowing it can take a hit with Sash, and back to Durant - who should be able to take a hit, outspeed, and hit with Entrainment. Even if the opposition is something like Walrein4 that kills Durant on the switch back in/Entrainment misses, Durant actually has the ability to stall out its attacking PP via Sub, Protect, Lefties, and the 30% accuracy of the OHKO moves, and then can easily set up on useless Rest/Sleep Talk to get itself fully boosted, even with only a 1 HP Cloyster in reserve and facing one of the most horrible Pokémon in the Maison.

That being said, all of this does depend on what the AI sends out following the KO'd Exeggutor (or Espeon, but the only time I met one as a lead so far I forgot I was supposed to kill it with X-Scissor and Entrained anyway, it had Synchronize) and what moves it knows. There's also the fact that Exeggutor and Espeon are both Psychic, which means they can show up as leads on Psychic/Ghost teams - and I'm pretty sure I once switched Durant, after KO'ing an Exeggutor lead, into Drapion and killed both backups with unboosted Knock Off. None of this is a perfect strategy, obviously, but may as well take an Explosion lead down with an X-Scissor that outspeeds when the alternative would be it using Explosion to hurt Durant and kill itself, or worse, ending the first turn against Espeon with no Entrainment, Espy at full health, and Durant weakened... I guess. This is all only based on my experiences and what I've read about Durant leads and specifically the Durant/Cloyster/Drapion team in the past. And certainly working with Garchomp would be a little more risky than "uber" Drapion, so I don't have much to say about that.

Yeah, that was the main point of that team: Durant-Cloyster is unbeatable on its own if you're "lucky" enough, and I just wanted to see how lucky one would have to be to never have any lead screw over Durant.

From a normal team-building perspective, it'd seem like I added Cloyster to the Durant-Drapion core because Cloyster addressed Drapion's weakness of not being able to set up quickly against self-KO leads, but in actuality Drapion was just there as the more assured win case in order to maximize the number of battles Durant-Cloyster could encounter without having to start over. Durant doesn't even need to KO Exeggutor because Exeggutor will always use Wood Hammer on Cloyster. If you have Durant and Cloyster, the 3rd team member's main purpose is to switch in against Fake Out users and to not lose HP against a lead that can use Sandstorm.

 

[VaporeonIce]

The faster way leaves you in a bad spot against any self-KOer that comes out 2nd; I'd be more worried about something like Lickilicky or Muk since you can at least try to keep Mienshao alive for longer by letting it break your Sub a few times.

It's fairly unlikely that Lickilicky or Muk would come in, because they do basically no damage to Durant. As far as I've been able to tell (which is admittedly based on very little data), the AI's hard-on for switching in Explosion users second doesn't extend to Pokemon that resist the move; I think the AI prefers sending in something with a neutral STAB to something with a resisted Explosion. Muk in particular is really manageable if it does come in second, and Lickilicky is likely to either Explode (which Whimsicott survives with the Sash) or EQ (which Whimsicott can Encore; I consider the odds of the AI sending out Espeon first, Lickilicky second, and having Lax Incense trigger to be "manageable risk"), though I recognize that there's also a slim chance it could Body Slam due to Explosion apparently messing with the AI's move selection. Claydol and Exeggutor are the other Set B Exploders, but Exegg will Trick Room and Claydol will EQ, both of which are prime targets for Encore.

Good call on remaining Signal Beam PP = more uses of Shadow Ball. I'll let you know if it ends up using Signal Beam before running out of Dazzling Gleam at some point, since I have the sense that sometimes the AI gives a little "extra credit" for secondary effects. Of course, that depends on me actually playing Singles again for some meaningful amount of time. Thanks for making me look like a Battle Maison slacker, Eppie :P

When thinking of "lead Durant uses X-Scissor against Espeon," I think I got overly concerned that you might choose the wrong sweeper to sacrifice to bring in Durant (e.g. sacrificing Garchomp to bring in Cloyster, then getting parahaxed by Magnezone 4). But if one of your sweepers in Drapion, then giving up the other one is the right choice 100% of the time. And if you don't have Drapion, Cloyster is always the right choice, thanks to the Sash and Icicle Spear 2HKOing the world. My bad.

 

[Altissimo]

Yeah, that was the main point of that team: Durant-Cloyster is unbeatable on its own if you're "lucky" enough, and I just wanted to see how lucky one would have to be to never have any lead screw over Durant.

From a normal team-building perspective, it'd seem like I added Cloyster to the Durant-Drapion core because Cloyster addressed Drapion's weakness of not being able to set up quickly against self-KO leads, but in actuality Drapion was just there as the more assured win case in order to maximize the number of battles Durant-Cloyster could encounter without having to start over. Durant doesn't even need to KO Exeggutor because Exeggutor will always use Wood Hammer on Cloyster. If you have Durant and Cloyster, the 3rd team member's main purpose is to switch in against Fake Out users and to not lose HP against a lead that can use Sandstorm.

Interesting stuff (especially about Exeggutor, that's gonna help my future battles). I was more worried about Cloyster's ability to take on opponents by its lonesome considering its struggles beating stuff like Water/Ice types and Thick Fat while only having one "extra life", but I haven't really met an opponent Cloyster couldn't 2HKO with fully-boosted Icicle Spear yet so I guess it's moot. Hmm. I'll keep this in mind when I play in the future - I'm back at 50 wins (I started using the team for the first 50 battles, even though it's not "meant" for that, after losing a few times before 50 with the speedy Dragonite/Aegislash/MegaKhan team) and this time I copied your list of threats to lead Durant and stuck it in my Word document alongside the information on what Cloyster can't OHKO, so hopefully I won't misplay against Yanmega or Floatzel again -_-

EDIT: Just lost battle ~70 to something that I don't know if I could have avoided. Lead Lapras, mandates a switch to Drapion to bother it, used Perish Song late in the match to Drapion was able to kill it with repeated Knock Offs. Drapion also got Wailord to low health before dying, so I sent in Durant, Entrained the Wailord, and sent in Cloyster who set up on Wailord. In comes Walrein4, FML. But maybe I can get lucky with crits or OHKO moves missing???... no such luck >:/

 

[turskain]

Congratulations to everyone with recent Triples streaks. There's also a Japanese player with 2000 wins in Triples here (Google Translate) using a team of Kangaskhan/Sylveon/Liepard/Landorus-T/Talonflame/Aegislash.



VaporeonIce, did Lickilicky's Explosion get shut down by Damp often? When I used Explosion in Triples, it was pretty frustrating to play against. All Damp users (aside from Parasect) are Water-types, including the 4x weak Swampert and Quagsire, so Energy Ball over HP Fighting on Cofagrigus might be better since Lickilicky's non-Explosion moves don't look too great if Damp is blocking the boom.



ReptoAbysmal, very nice to see you join the 1000 club. I thought you'd be the first person to post a 1000-win streak using Trick Room in Triples, but VaporeonIce beat you to the punch by just a bit.



I haven't been Maison much after the series of "revenge streaks" in Doubles after losing the Triples streak, but I did start playing ORAS Triples some time ago with an improved version of Team Leer, which I included a battle video of with the Storm Drain post. Regarding Storm Drain, the AI has been consistent with the findings for the last 150 battles - the one interaction I am not sure of is Clawitzer4, which would be expected to switch out if it could after locking into Water Pulse, but might not do so (and stay in feeding Gastrodon forever) if the Storm Drain user is in a side position and it's in the center or right. I'm at 915 wins right now and will be posting a full write-up at 1000; it doesn't look too different from its trophy-run incarnarnation, but it is a lot better than the original, which I didn't think would have the potential to make a large streak.

 

[VaporeonIce]

Congratulations to everyone with recent Triples streaks. There's also a Japanese player with 2000 wins in Triples here (Google Translate) using a team of Kangaskhan/Sylveon/Liepard/Landorus-T/Talonflame/Aegislash.



VaporeonIce, did Lickilicky's Explosion get shut down by Damp often? When I used Explosion in Triples, it was pretty frustrating to play against. All Damp users (aside from Parasect) are Water-types, including the 4x weak Swampert and Quagsire, so Energy Ball over HP Fighting on Cofagrigus might be better since Lickilicky's non-Explosion moves don't look too great if Damp is blocking the boom.

The only time I saw Explosion shut down was when the AI tried to use Explosion against its own Damp Poliwrath. So no, they've never shut down Lickilicky's Explosion with Damp. The primary reason for that is that I don't use Explosion that often. When I created the team, I assumed battles would go "clear out Ghosts/Rocks/Steels/things with Protect with my three leads, then OHKO the back-ups with Explosion." In practice, Mega Audino, Aron, and Hariyama usually end the battle by themselves; if they don't, I generally send in Sylveon to mop up whatever's left. Lickilicky most often comes in when the battle's basically over anyway, or when Hariyama faints on turn 1 and there are two Pokemon I want to KO in the middle and the right. Hariyama generally faints to Moltres or Hawlucha Sky Attack, Honchkrow Drill Peck, or random Psychics (generally Espeon) or Moonblasts (Gardevoir) None of which are paired with a Damp user all that frequently. I actually kinda forgot that Damp exists, but thanks for reminding me; I'll be a bit more cautious about it in the future. Energy Ball does have some nice utility (Rhyperior is a particularly good target, since it can get pretty slow with Hammer Arm) and I haven't found myself wishing for HP Fighting all that often...except against Bastiodon, who would probably be worth the loss of all that other utility. I would still need to do some additional damage against it, since it only manages about 50%, but an unboosted Shadow Ball has less than a 50% chance of KOing a Bastiodon that's been knocked down to Sturdy and restored health with its Sitrus Berry.

And yeah, Lickilicky's other moves are weak as hell. They're utility only (Brick Break doesn't even OHKO a Tyranitar with a broken Sash...sigh...), but fortunately, they serve their purpose pretty well. I usually just need to weaken stuff like Heatran, not OHKO it.

Nice find on the Japanese player! I often wish that I knew how other people across the world were doing in the Maison. I mean, what if I'm actually only like #8 in Singles? I occasionally find myself wishing for a global leaderboard, but I'm pretty confident people would just use hacked shit to get to the top anyway. Kangaskhan/Sylveon/Liepard/Lando-T/Talonflame/Aegislash sounds super interesting, though.

Hooray for the return of Team Leer! That move is hilariously good; watch out for Big Pecks! (lulz)

Altissimo , did Drapion get trapped by Lapras? If not, you should have set up on it (rather than trying to KO) and switched out on the last turn of Perish Song (or maybe tried to sweep if you quickly got +6 Atk and +2 Speed or something). If it did get trapped, you made the right play until Wailord came in (especially if this was a trainer who had Water as one of their "specialty types"). Once Wailord came in, Drapion was no longer trapped (because the Block user wasn't out anymore). At that point, I would have switched to Durant. If it didn't get OHKOd, you could set up Entrainment; if it did, you'd probably still be able to set up Drapion. Wailord 4 only has 20 PP, and even though it has Zoom Lens, most of its moves can still miss (and Fissure has terrible accuracy). With a single miss, you can Knock Off the Zoom Lens to buy even more misses, getting you a few Acupressure boosts. How many turns you get to use Acupressure depends on how many times Wailord misses, but with Walrein as the last opponent, it wouldn't matter; as long as you can set up Subs, Walrein can't beat you. You wouldn't get a full set-up (unless Durant survived to use Entrainment), but I imagine a full-health Cloyster + Drapion with a few boosts and a Sub would fare better than Cloyster alone against many Water-heavy teams.

 

[Altissimo]

Just lost on battle 49 after yet another attempt with Durant/Drapion/Cloyster. I'm getting really desperate, ugh. GG Unit pinned this team as being probably the quickest/easiest to score 200 wins with, but I'm wondering if anyone else can name a team that's easy enough to use for that same purpose that doesn't involve a legendary? I don't know if I'd rather spend time breeding even more Pokémon for these purposes but like it can't be any worse than my shitty losses I have going on now ~_~

EDIT:

Altissimo , did Drapion get trapped by Lapras? If not, you should have set up on it (rather than trying to KO) and switched out on the last turn of Perish Song (or maybe tried to sweep if you quickly got +6 Atk and +2 Speed or something). If it did get trapped, you made the right play until Wailord came in (especially if this was a trainer who had Water as one of their "specialty types"). Once Wailord came in, Drapion was no longer trapped (because the Block user wasn't out anymore). At that point, I would have switched to Durant. If it didn't get OHKOd, you could set up Entrainment; if it did, you'd probably still be able to set up Drapion. Wailord 4 only has 20 PP, and even though it has Zoom Lens, most of its moves can still miss (and Fissure has terrible accuracy). With a single miss, you can Knock Off the Zoom Lens to buy even more misses, getting you a few Acupressure boosts. How many turns you get to use Acupressure depends on how many times Wailord misses, but with Walrein as the last opponent, it wouldn't matter; as long as you can set up Subs, Walrein can't beat you. You wouldn't get a full set-up (unless Durant survived to use Entrainment), but I imagine a full-health Cloyster + Drapion with a few boosts and a Sub would fare better than Cloyster alone against many Water-heavy teams.

Yep, Lapras used Block. I admit staying in on Wailord was a stupid play, I just didn't want to bring Durant into a possible OHKO. x.x god this is frustrating me to no end it's the damn factory all over again

 

[GG Unit]

If Drapion had KOed , sacrificing Cloyster to bring Durant in safely would've been the right thing to do. That's already a pretty crazy battle; I don't think Drapion has ever been able to switch in and KO Lapras before turn 3 of Perish Song for me, so I'm always either switching back to Durant or letting Drapion faint on the turn Lapras switches out. I definitely had a battle in my 970ish streak in which Lapras trapped Drapion on the switch so Cloyster had to go 1 on 1 against Walrein at the end. If you were using Surf and Walrein hit you twice before you could hit it twice, that's just super bad luck.

Lots of shine for Liepards all of a sudden. That triples one has Fake out, Foul Play, Fake Tears, and Encore to be Specs Sylveon's personal helper; kind of a convergent evolution of the Mega Gardevoir Fake Out team.

 

[Altissimo]

Cloyster was fully set up, and I was using Icicle Spear on Walrein because I didn't know what Walrein's ability was and the odds of Icicle Spear being a crit meant it seemed like a safer choice than Surf, especially since Surf doesn't 2HKO anyway. I did get one crit with Icicle Spear, but it wasn't enough to save me.

My most recent loss involved the very thing we've been talking about lately... lead Espeon. I OHKO'd with X-Scissor and out comes Zebstrika, which I have no idea what it's going to do considering it has Volt Switch, Wild Charge, and Thunder Wave. I just decide to keep Durant in to test the waters, get paralyzed, get hit with Wild Charge for <50% damage, and then I switched to Cloyster who got KO'd by two Volt Switches (I didn't want to send Durant in on one and Cloyster is more "expendable" except what should Zebstrika switch to but fucking Yanmega4. Without Frisk. So I risk the Entrainment - remember, I'm paralyzed, so it better not KO - nope, Drapion it's all up to you oh okay or you could just die to a couple Bug Buzzes that works too all right great time to start again.

Maybe it's just because I'm a shit predictor/player and that's why I don't do the whole competitive battling scene, but I seem to be really struggling to get anywhere with this team or really any team. It's unbelievably frustrating, because I don't know what I can do to maximize my chances of quickly getting to 200 before a substantial amount of time has passed, and I hate how much time has to go down the drain when I lose a streak.

 

[GG Unit]

Cloyster was fully set up, and I was using Icicle Spear on Walrein because I didn't know what Walrein's ability was and the odds of Icicle Spear being a crit meant it seemed like a safer choice than Surf, especially since Surf doesn't 2HKO anyway. I did get one crit with Icicle Spear, but it wasn't enough to save me.

My most recent loss involved the very thing we've been talking about lately... lead Espeon. I OHKO'd with X-Scissor and out comes Zebstrika, which I have no idea what it's going to do considering it has Volt Switch, Wild Charge, and Thunder Wave. I just decide to keep Durant in to test the waters, get paralyzed, get hit with Wild Charge for <50% damage, and then I switched to Cloyster who got KO'd by two Volt Switches (I didn't want to send Durant in on one and Cloyster is more "expendable" except what should Zebstrika switch to but fucking Yanmega4. Without Frisk. So I risk the Entrainment - remember, I'm paralyzed, so it better not KO - nope, Drapion it's all up to you oh okay or you could just die to a couple Bug Buzzes that works too all right great time to start again.

Maybe it's just because I'm a shit predictor/player and that's why I don't do the whole competitive battling scene, but I seem to be really struggling to get anywhere with this team or really any team. It's unbelievably frustrating, because I don't know what I can do to maximize my chances of quickly getting to 200 before a substantial amount of time has passed, and I hate how much time has to go down the drain when I lose a streak.

With the EVs I used Surf has a 2HKO chance. 5 max damage Icicle Spear hits against a non-Thick Fat Walrein will do 85 damage (average damage rolls plus one crit would do a little less) and a minimum damage roll Surf does 84. Either way, Surf is the safest but if you don't have those EVs you're better off just giving it another try rather than re-breeding since it was bad luck in the first place and even then, sacking Cloyster to Wailord would have made it a relatively undramatic battle.

That second one was maybe even unluckier; at the very least, you're adding to the mountain of evidence that anyone claiming a 500+ streak with a Durant lead team and no foreknowledge of Maison sets or lead behavior is lying :)

That battle can serve as some hard-earned experience that Zebstrika is T-waving Durant 95% of the time and using Wild Charge the other 5% - I've never seen it Volt Switch. After switching to Cloyster, the outcomes can branch widely, but even the most negative outcome from that decision (switching in on Wild Charge and getting Volt Switched for the KO or switching in on Thunder Wave and getting fully para'd as it Volt Switches Cloyster to the Sash) would have you 2-2 with a fully healthy Durant out against Yanmega. That's still a pretty desperate situation, but you have a pretty good shot at successfully Entraining a Tinted Lens Yanmega and even a Speed Boost one may bail you out and not use Detect the first turn.

All those little things add up; a team with a 99.5% chance of winning the average battle can expect a 200 streak about 1 in 3 tries, but bumping that up to 99.9% would bump the likelihood of a 200 streak to about 4 out of every 5 attempts. Also definitely just use a lead Dragonite team for the first 50.

 

[Altissimo]

With the EVs I used Surf has a 2HKO chance. 5 max damage Icicle Spear hits against a non-Thick Fat Walrein will do 85 damage (average damage rolls plus one crit would do a little less) and a minimum damage roll Surf does 84. Either way, Surf is the safest but if you don't have those EVs you're better off just giving it another try rather than re-breeding since it was bad luck in the first place and even then, sacking Cloyster to Wailord would have made it a relatively undramatic battle.

My Cloyster is Naughty with a 28 SpAtk IV and no EVs. I figured it wasn't important to have perfect SpAtk since it is going to be killing things with Icicle Spear the majority of the time anyway, and 28 is very close to perfect. Looks like that cost me, haha... but again since Icicle Spear kills most things I don't know how important the SpAtk investment really is against things that aren't, like, Walrein. :/ I have a Word document that lists all the things that aren't OHKO'd by +6 Icicle Spear (taking into account Thick Fat except I forgot about stuff like Slowking with Sitrus Berry), and a reasonable number of them are OHKO'd by Surf. Those that aren't are usually 2HKO'd by one of the two moves, and since Cloyster doesn't care about missing the OHKO on leads due to Entrainment and is usually only fully set up when Durant is still alive to support Drapion if need be, it only matters that SpAtk is imperfect when things like last poke Cloyster v. Walrein4 happen. Eh.

That second one was maybe even unluckier; at the very least, you're adding to the mountain of evidence that anyone claiming a 500+ streak with a Durant lead team and no foreknowledge of Maison sets or lead behavior is lying :)

haha omg okay so recently I was rereading big chunks of this thread and I came across that whole 1500+ Durant/Cloyster/Garchomp streak debacle and saw that not long after, you started posting battle videos and quotes like "Man, I must be the unluckiest person in the world that Durant couldn't get off Entrainment!" and I was like "GG Unit? Complaining about being unlucky at something that is bound to happen with a TruAnt team?... No, wait, I see what's going on here..." which is why I started liking all those posts, especially when they talked about Garchomp vs Drapion and I was like... does nobody else see this, this is fukken hilarious

That battle can serve as some hard-earned experience that Zebstrika is T-waving Durant 95% of the time and using Wild Charge the other 5% - I've never seen it Volt Switch. After switching to Cloyster, the outcomes can branch widely, but even the most negative outcome from that decision (switching in on Wild Charge and getting Volt Switched for the KO or switching in on Thunder Wave and getting fully para'd as it Volt Switches Cloyster to the Sash) would have you 2-2 with a fully healthy Durant out against Yanmega. That's still a pretty desperate situation, but you have a pretty good shot at successfully Entraining a Tinted Lens Yanmega and even a Speed Boost one may bail you out and not use Detect the first turn.

Good to know. I figured it was probably going to Thunder Wave given the AI's obsession with leading with status moves, but I hadn't faced a Zebstrika in a situation like that so I wasn't sure. Its coming after Espeon was annoying, since Durant was locked into X-Scissor and had to do something else, and then third poke Yanmega was just the end of it.

All those little things add up; a team with a 99.5% chance of winning the average battle can expect a 200 streak about 1 in 3 tries, but bumping that up to 99.9% would bump the likelihood of a 200 streak to about 4 out of every 5 attempts. Also definitely just use a lead Dragonite team for the first 50.

It's been more than three tries for me - but I'm also very inexperienced with this kind of team! I just have to hope the things that can screw me over (lead Espeon going to Zebstrika, Cloyster against Walrein) don't show up/I can make plays to avoid them. I need to think my options through more before attacking, haha.

 

[VaporeonIce]

It's been more than three tries for me - but I'm also very inexperienced with this kind of team! I just have to hope the things that can screw me over (lead Espeon going to Zebstrika, Cloyster against Walrein) don't show up/I can make plays to avoid them. I need to think my options through more before attacking, haha.

I wonder how much of this is using a team somebody else designed. I remembered when I first started playing the Maison seriously, I was REALLY motivated to figure out how to make my team the best it could possibly be. When I lost or almost lost, I remember thinking, "there must be some way I can get around this," and running a ton of mock battles to figure out what would maximize my odds of success. I didn't have any context or comparison; no one else was using a Togekiss/Mega Kangaskhan/Aegislash team, so I didn't have any baseline of how good it "should" be. I also didn't read other people's streaks much, because I wanted to come up with the sets on my own (which ended up being the same set everyone else uses, because it's generally the best one). If someone had a 3,156 streak with the same team and I lost at 125 (I think that's how far I got with my first iteration of the team, with the help of a LOT of luck), I'd imagine that I would have thought that I absolutely suck as a player. Those kinds of thoughts would have also made it harder for me to motivate myself or to really think through all of my moves. Without that comparison, I wasn't worried about how good I was, I just focused on playing the team over and over until I got the Starf Berry.

All of the information provided here can be amazing for people wanting to learn the ins and outs of the Maison, but I think the amount of expertise here can sometimes be intimidating, and make people feel like they're somehow incapable because they're newer and still learning. But I think even the most experienced of us are still learning and make mistakes (me especially; sacrificing Cloyster against Wailord to hit it with Entrainment was clearly a better strategy than my proposed strategy of switching to Durant and stalling it out). And the good news is that this isn't the Factory (fuck the Factory), because we can use mock battles and figure out how to win the battles we lost. But I can understand how the whole social comparison of using a team someone else designed can make that process really frustrating. There's absolutely nothing wrong with using a team someone else designed; the main downside is that, when you lose, it feels less like "How can I get better with this team?" and more like "Why am I not getting it?"

Good luck!

 

[Altissimo]

-snip-

You've basically hit the nail on the head about how I feel about this whole thing... I mentioned before in my "history with the Battle facilities" post that I spent the better part of like three years running up unsuccessful streaks with poorly-IV'd Pokémon with no team synergy whatsoever, and yet I persevered for the better part of three years because I wanted to beat Palmer/get a 100 win streak, and, more importantly, I didn't know there was anything better out there and never really bothered to check. I've only lost, like, what, four times? with this Durant team and yet apparently that's enough to make me complain and wonder what I'm doing wrong... where three years of constant failure with teams I developed never triggered that question until the last time I asked TCoD for advice and they pointed me to Smogon. If I was able to put up with daily failures for three years, why the hell is three losses bothering me so much? and the answer is more than likely "I didn't create the team". It's especially poignant in light of the fact that when I did finally check out the records thread when struggling on Platinum, I copied Peterko's team and got 100 wins on my first try, so it's like, why can another similarly cheesing-the-AI team let me down?? But it's 200 wins of fighting AI with good movesets as opposed to the 50 NFEs and then 50 good movesets of Platinum's Tower, so I guess I shouldn't be complaining (especially since I did continue the 100 tower streak at some point and lost at like, 110). I'm not sure where this post is going anymore so I guess just thanks for those words, they really do highlight my own psychology about the game and it'll help me to remember that just because I'm not GG Unit doesn't mean I can't still get 200 wins with this team - I just have to think it through more and not panic!

EDIT: Just lost to lead Medicham4. How do you deal with this one? It used Detect first turn, then KO'd Durant with High Jump Kick as Durant loafed, and KO'd Drapion with High Jump Kick too.

 

[SimicCombine]

I can understand the frustration. Really the only way to get "good" at the Maison is to play it over and over again so that you'll never meet an unfamiliar situation, or at least make the right play 95% of the time something new comes up. I haven't done a streak with a TruAnt team, but I think they'd be especially difficult for someone who isn't very familiar with the quirks of the Maison AI. 90% of leads you'll just cheese and fully set up on no problem, but it's that ten percent which requires the thoughtful play, and since the style is all-in on one or two sweepers, there's very little room for error.

Maybe a more "fair" hyper-offense team would be better off to start with. Use something like Multiscale Dragonite which can beat most of the Maison on its own, pair it with a defensive set-up monster who can boost up against most of the field (like Mega Scizor or Suicune), and use a fast, strong third Mon to cover the weaknesses of the previous two. The "fair" teams are a bit less reliable, so getting a streak upwards of 200 may be more difficult, but I like standard offensive teams as an introduction to the weirdness that is the Maison AI.