Discussion: Resistance Berries

Gardevoir

The last thread about the special resistance berries was back in January, so I thought I would make a new thread now that people have a feel of the D/P environment.

The berries #36 to #52 are special berries that grant the holder a single turn of protection from a specific type of attack. This one turn may be all that the holder needs to complete a set up to sweep or finish off the weakened opponent.

Many Pokemon have their attack stats set to guarantee OHKO on certain opponents, for example bulky water types have 266 special attack to guarantee OHKO on things like Garchomp and Salamence with Ice Beam. But if the dragons had the Yache berry attached, the damage they take will be reduced by half, and then they can finish setting up the needed Swords Dance, or attack with that second Earthquake to finish off the opponent.

These berries are situational, however, and in some cases the common Leftovers would suffice.

What is your opinion on the special resistance berries?
 
Well, its great to know that Kingdra and Drapion have no weakness, but as you mentioned, always go for the sure leftovers recovery.

The only way i see a berry being useful is if you have an entire team weak to one thing, in which case you probably have some bigger issues to deal with rather than item selection.
 
Yeah...their main use is to extend certain pokemons' lifespans for one more turn. The main use this has is setting up, so...that's why you see Yache berries on a lot of dragons, I guess, since they frequently have either DD or SD (in Gar's case).

I really don't see much use beyond that, as buying one extra turn in a very specific circumstance isn't all that helpful. Plus, Focus sash can easily do a similar task, and is a lot more reliable.
 
Focus sash, however, fails when sr/spikes/sandstorm is out. When you have a mostly sturdy pokemon with just one big weakness like garchomp, a resist berry can be very useful in getting in that last bit of setup. However, even chomp lacks power when it has only a single SD and nothing else; Using the yache berry to get a second SD would be much more rewarding, rather than as a way to get a single one. Chomp already has methods to do that. Although for this extra effort, what do we gain? A monster with 3x the atk it would normally have. But... we already have a monster with just one SD, and life orb, with x2.6 the atk it would normally have. The extra effort required to get the second SD seems like too much for the difference of power, and if you were using yache berry to get a single SD, you probably should've just used LO to begin with, anyway. Skarm takes 63-74% from a SD+LOed fire fang. It takes 73-86% from a 2 SD'd one. Hm.. come to think of it, it might actually be worth running yache double SD...
 
Thorns said:
The only thing I can see that this will help is Shuca Berry Magnezone...which you have Magnet Rise for.
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Magnet Rise is rather much of a novelty. It has better things to do than using Magnet Rise for a turn. For example, TBolting a OHKO on a Pokemon.

It works for killing no speed Metagrosses, but despite this people do run Agiligross among other speedier variantions of Metagross.
 
I use the berries often in Battle Tower (Singles), where there's not many good switches possible going on while having to fight seven different 3vs3 in a row.

I believe just having one DD on Salamence matters in the Battle Tower... when surviving one turn against something that has a surprise Ice attack is the difference between a fainted dragon and a sweep of the opposing team... unless they have Ice Shard...
 
If you're running a 'standard' team where you or your opponent is going to be switching every single round, then the resistance berries aren't going to do you a lot of good, since you're switching out of every attack that's effective. The resistance berries are best used when the extra turn allows you a big advantage. For instance, if you have an Ampharos with Counter, Shuca berry allows it to survive a STABed Earthquake and hit back for a OHKO. I run Rindo Berry on my Swampert because I have Avalanche for KOing Grass-types. Likewise, my Porygon2 has a Chople Berry so it can survive a Fighting attack and Conversion2 to the Psychic, Flying, or Ghost type before using Recover.

Focus Sash is for frail things that can't take a hit from anything. If something is sturdy and only has one or two major weaknesses, use a resistance berry instead because it works even if you've taken a bit of damage from weather or an attack on the switch.

As a side note, putting Leftovers on everything reinforces the boring, predictable, switch-every-other-turn metagame. So, if you're into that, make sure you have Leftovers on every...single...Pokémon.
 
Yache Berry [as said by others] is such a good Berry.
It's the reason of a Victory of mine...
If Dragonite sweeps in late Game and a unexpected Ice Beamer comes:
Your Dragonite fails -> But Yache Berry can handle the Ice Beam and B00m!
Outrage will pwn your Enemy.

I don't know but I think the Berrys can't be a bad Choice if your PKMN has a x4 Weakness.

Focus Sash is such a Pain and can be a Item Waste -> Early in the Game Stealth Rock makes its appeareance xP
Focus Sash becomes worthless...
+ Fake Out is Destroyer of all Sashes <.< *horrible*

So If you want to set up SD with Garchomp a Yache Berry can be cool 8D
 
Footnote, dare I ask what would be so boring about a switch every turn metagame even if that were true which it is not? Lots of switching tends to mean lots of predicting which is very good.
 
i have been thinking lately about using a shuca berry drpion. with sword dance, cross poison, night slash and brick break instead of black sludge or leftovers. Since it is his only weakness..
 
I've been trying out a Yache Berry. On Scyther though, not a Dragon. I teamed it up with Natural Gift, so that it can have two functions. He can repel an Ice Beam that may OHKO, but he can also OHKO the Dragons with an unpredictable 4x Ice attack.

Sure, I could use a Ganlon for the additional power, but I've found the defensive effects of the Yache to be every bit as useful as the offensive. And I accept that there may be better items for Scyther, but heck, if it's working for me, why would I change it?
 
Ice resist berry is decent, but some other item is always better.
Ground resist could be a half-decent gimmick on Aggron/Bastiodon.
But berries suck in general, and will always remain gimmicks.
 
Amazing Ampharos said:
Footnote, dare I ask what would be so boring about a switch every turn metagame even if that were true which it is not? Lots of switching tends to mean lots of predicting which is very good.
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Sorry. It's just a pet peeve of mine. Boring is in the eye of the beholder. You may not find it boring that every turn involves a switch, but I do. It's as simple as that. I apologize for injecting my personal opinion into it.

I agree that more prediction is better, but I honestly don't think the switch-to-a-counter mentality really adds or subtracts much prediction. Perhaps you could explain to me how predicting a switch is any different than predicting an attack so that I can understand your point better.

If you really like prediction, try out Doubles. Figuring out what both opponents are likely to do is quite a bit more challenging.

Kumar said:
Ice resist berry is decent, but some other item is always better.
Ground resist could be a half-decent gimmick on Aggron/Bastiodon.
But berries suck in general, and will always remain gimmicks.
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That's quite a blanket statement. If a Pokémon beats you because of a berry, and it would have lost if it had a durable item, is that still a gimmick?
 
Just out of curiosity: Does it show if they use a berry like that? I havent seen them yet so I dont know. If not, Bronzong with the fire resister could trick your opponent into thinking you got a Heatproof one.
 
Their use is still extremely limited even with Item Clause. Sash, CBand, CScarf, CSpecs and Lefties are all more universally useful.
Lou Cypher said:
Just out of curiosity: Does it show if they use a berry like that?
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Yes. It says such and such's Berry reduced the attack's effectiveness.
 
With item clause, we could also use a Sub Passer equipped with a +stats pinch berry. Or Black Sludge Weezing. Heck, sometimes Sitrus Berry works great.

With regards to Sash, not everyone can use it. I wouldn't put one on a bulky sweeper like a DD Dos or DD Mence. If a bulky Pokemon has an Achilees' Heel, it may be better to cut 50% of the damage from its 4x weakness than to leave it with with 1 HP, only to later be poked by sandstream or snow warning or a not-very-effective priority move (like Aqua Jet or Mach Punch against those two examples).
 
I dont know about you guys, but the resistance berries are very useful on certain pokemon. In my oppinon, any bulky pokemon with a recovery move does not need leftovers. I rather cover a big weakness they recover 1/16 of my health when I can recover 1/4 or 1/2 in one turn. Also in our current metagame, pokemon that strive on super effective hits are usually screwed over if their enemy survives. Swampert is a good example of this. If you switch in a grass type to avoid a water type attack and ko with Grass knot or energy ball, your screwed if swampert survives and Stone Edge/Ice Beams you. Its a very useful surprise if you ask me...

edit: I know I made 2 different points. They are not ment to be considered as if they are happening at the same time.
 
Well, there's one catch about that Swampert though. Assuming Swampert takes some damage and doesn't heal some life at the end of the turn, wouldn't that already make the opponent suspicious that Swampert has equipped something fishy? I mean, who puts Focus Sash, Life Orb or Choice Items on their Swamperts?
 
Life Orb Mixpert is possible, I guess. >.>

But I see what you mean about Focus Sash, although there are certainly more Pokemon that benefit from Focus Sash than the resistence berries.
 
It (any resistance berry) is kinda useless if you are slower than the opponent. They hit you once on the switchin (or while you're already in, I guess) for less damage, then hit you again before you do something back.

That's why I wouldn't really consider outside of something that's able to increase its own speed with Dragon Dance, such as Salamence. Getting a Dragon Dance while they hit for less than 100% could be a big difference, especially if you can get 2 of them (1 as they switch to a counter, 2nd as they try to use Ice Beam or another Ice attack).

Otherwise, I wouldn't really use any of these. Even with Item Clause, there's usually better options.
 
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