Solid Rock (and Filter)

GtM

Solid Rock: Reduces damage from super-effective attacks by 25%!
Filter: Same thing!

Okay, since there's no longer a trivia thread I'm just going to post some musings about the abilities here. Feel free to discuss how useful you find these abilities to be on their various hosts!

First of all, I've heard a lot of people complaining about Solid Rock since Rhyperior's still killed easily by almost any Grass or Water attack. I think the reasoning for Rhyperior having Solid Rock is to augment its physical defense even further, letting it take less damage from Fighting and Ground attacks. Same deal with Carracosta, I'm sure Solid Rock was given to it to help it tank Fighting and Ground attacks with its massive Defense rather than let it survive Grass attacks.

Second, I've noticed that, if a pokemon that has Solid Rock uses a type-resist berry, it only takes 0.75x the normal damage! I expected it to cap at normal effectiveness (1x) so this was kind of surprising. The fact that a Solid Rock / Filter pokemon takes less damage from a super effective move than a normally effective move is pretty interesting, and could have some peculiar applications!

For example, guess how much 252 HP / 252 Def Impish Rhyperior with a Shuca Berry takes from a +2 Adamant LO Excadrill's Earthquake? 49.8% - 58.5%. That's just ridiculous. Just send in Rhyperior on something it threatens and lure in their Excadrill. They'll expect Leftovers or Life Orb and either boost or go for an Earthquake. So long as they aren't at +2 with a Balloon when you come in, you should be fine. Hell, even offensive Camerupt with a Shuca Berry can survive Excadrill's unboosted Adamant LO Earthquake almost all of the time, and that thing has pitiful 70 / 70 defenses. Obviously, both pokemon would be even better at tanking similar attacks in their respective tiers.

Third, this is just a personal inquiry. If a pokemon was released in the future that both had the ability Filter and was weak to Rock, how much damage would it theoretically take from Stealth Rock? Since Rock attacks would only be 1.5x effective, I'd assume the pokemon would take 18.75% on switching in. But I have no idea! It can't be tested on PO with other people since all pokemon with Solid Rock / Filter take at least normal damage from Stealth Rock, and even if Skill Swap was used to give other pokemon Filter (via Mr Mime) it would wear off when the recipient switches out, and thus the Stealth Rock hypothesis can't be tested. Interesting.
 
PO wouldn't have the real mechanics for that anyways, as it's an untested (I think?) situation. Someone would have to hack Filter/Solid Rock onto something like Lugia with 400 HP (for easy calculating) then test it in-game.

Edit: Actually, Tehy, Mr. Mime has Soundproof which used to be useful in Baton Pass teams.
 
This would be an interesting conversation, but there's no real need to choose any other ability, since its users have no other useful abilities.

Excluding soundproof mr. mime for baton passing in lower tiers that lack espeon, of course. But this is a niche use, and anyone who wants to use mr mime for this purpose will obviously not pick filter.
 
For a less tenuous example, a Chople Berry lets a 252/252 Impish Rhyperior take 51.8% - 61.3% from +2 Jolly LO Terrakion's Close Combat, even surviving a +4 one. Cool beans.

Also, for lols, Colbur Berry Mr Mine takes 89.2% - 105.4% from Absol's Adamant LO Sucker Punch. And that thing has uninvested 40/65 defenses.
 
I still prefer Sturdy on my Shell Smash Carracosta. The peace-of-mind of knowing I can get off at least ONE Shell Smash in ANY situation is extremely welcome.
 
This ability just... sucks, tbh.

Mr. Mime: sucks and Soundproof is generally better.

Camerupt: meh-ish Pokemon but all of its abilities suck anyway

Rhyperior: Lightningrod isn't doing any favours, so Solid Rock.

Carracosta: Why. Sturdy is like 100x better with guaranteed SS.

I'm only seeing Camerupt and Rhyperior using Solid Rock, but its because their non-DW abilities just suck. Rhyperior doesn't need L-Rod and freeze is rare in the meta. :/
 
TM13IceBeam said:
This ability just... sucks, tbh.

Mr. Mime: sucks and Soundproof is generally better.

Camerupt: meh-ish Pokemon but all of its abilities suck anyway

Rhyperior: Lightningrod isn't doing any favours, so Solid Rock.

Carracosta: Why. Sturdy is like 100x better with guaranteed SS.

I'm only seeing Camerupt and Rhyperior using Solid Rock, but its because their non-DW abilities just suck. Rhyperior doesn't need L-Rod and freeze is rare in the meta. :/
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Solid Rock is absolutely amazing but has terrible distribution.

132 HP / 152 Def (My personal EVs) Rhyperior is only 3HKO'd by Jolly Excadrill.

Carracosta is the same deal. It makes Carracosta so bulky that no non-Grass Physical Attack will ever OHKO it, making Sturdy pretty damn useless.

Even Mr. Mime is better off using Filter if it's not on a Baton Pass team. Nothing with Roar's going to be standing up to Nasty Plot Mr. Mime anyhow. But yeah, Mr. Mime's a toss up. He'd enjoy not getting KO'd by Gengar but Soundproof isn't bad.

Great ability. Bad Pokemon...for the most part.
 
Used a Mr. Mime+ Blissey lead in VGC2010 ruleset, With 2 turns setup(reflect+skill swap), only crits and Metagross explosion OHKOd blissey, and that was in the metagame with 2 übers allowed.
Crits and freeze made it kinda unreliable, even though it singlehandily made alot of combacks for me, since it was the main strategy from the beggining to just have blissey left with a couple of calm mind (add counter, so physical attacks hurts more then they benefit)...
 
Fun fact: If expecting to fight a Bug-type special attacker, give Mr. Mime Soundproof instead of Filter, as Bug Buzz is a sound move so it's completely nullified.
 
I've tried using Solid Rock on Rhyperior before and it takes super effective Physical hits surprisingly well. I have yet to test a Pokemon with Filter though.
 
Except people who like using Reckless Take Down, or Rhyperior+Gyrados in Doubles.

As for the OP, the description on Serebii states...

Serebii said:
Any Attacks that are Super Effective on this Pokémon have their damage lowered
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Bulbapedia says...

Bulbapedia said:
Solid Rock reduces super effective damage by 1/4. A move that would deal 2× damage will instead deal 1.5× damage, and a move that would deal 4× will instead deal 3×
Click to expand...

Slightly flawed but same thing. It reduces damage from Super-Effective attacks. Stealth Rock technically a status move (like [Toxic] Spikes), so I doubt the damage would be reduced by Solid Rock/Filter.
 
Carracosta: As Shell smash sets are the most common it needs sturdy for it to work.

Rhyperior: Lightningrod is better in doubles as you can pair it with a gyrados or something, but Solid rock is it's go-to ability. If it had probably 35 sp def more it would probably be OU.

Camerupt: Bad in competitive battling with its weaknesses to water and ground so solid rock doesn't help it much. I guess it's more useful then angerpoint and magma armor, though.

Mr. Mime: Really depends on the set you are running. Soundproof for baton pass sets. If you're trying to be bulky with mr. mime (lol) then I guess filter would be better. Speaking of Mr. mime's abilities, don't even try technician(although you all probably know that).

It would be a good ability if the pokemon were better. Something like ferrothorn.
 
GtM said:
Third, this is just a personal inquiry. If a pokemon was released in the future that both had the ability Filter and was weak to Rock, how much damage would it theoretically take from Stealth Rock? Since Rock attacks would only be 1.5x effective, I'd assume the pokemon would take 18.75% on switching in. But I have no idea! It can't be tested on PO with other people since all pokemon with Solid Rock / Filter take at least normal damage from Stealth Rock, and even if Skill Swap was used to give other pokemon Filter (via Mr Mime) it would wear off when the recipient switches out, and thus the Stealth Rock hypothesis can't be tested. Interesting.
Click to expand...
There are exactly two kinds of damage in Pokemon: attack damage and residual damage.

Attack damage is further broken up into powered damage (damage calculated from base power and stats, and modified by resistances, crits, Reflect, etc), and numeric damage (everything else, e.g. Psywave, Sheer Cold, Endeavor, Counter). Residual damage, on the other hand, is all numeric.

For the most part, it's obvious which is which: Attack damage is direct damage caused by a move, and residual damage is everything else. Some things might be confusing, though: Doom Desire and Future Sight used to be residual damage in past gens, but are now attack damage. Flame Burst's splash damage is residual damage.

Nearly every ability, item, or other effect operates on only residual damage or attack damage. For instance, Sturdy and Wonder Guard only operate on attack damage. The only exception is Heatproof, which halves both Fire-type attack damage and burn residual damage - note that these are two separate effects: the halving of burn damage isn't an extension of the halving of Fire-type damage, burn damage is otherwise typeless.

This is very useful to know. When you ask yourself, "If I burn my opponent using Will-O-Wisp and kill him, will I die to Destiny Bond?", you can figure out the answer: Destiny Bond operates on attack damage, which means it doesn't operate on residual damage, which means using Will-O-Wisp is safe (bar Heatran switch-ins).

Stealth Rock is also intentional exception to the rule that numeric damage isn't affected by weaknesses/resistances. The game checks for weaknesses/resistances to Rock and adjusts SR damage accordingly - it doesn't go through the powered damage calculations that Filter and Solid Rock modify.

tl;dr: 12.5%
 
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