The move "Feint" and its usefulness/practicality

[Big Bayou]

1. I certainly would not advocate using Feint with one Pokémon and Exploding with the other. If anything, Feint would be used for predicted Explosions from your opponent.

But your Feinter still dies from their Explosion then. And if their Exploder is faster and you are at low health, they may just opt to kill you without Explosion, meaning you wasted a turn and possibly a Pokemon you could have saved with Protect. Too situational.

2. You don't have to use Feint for multi-target attacks. If you really need to KO a specific opponent that you think might Protect, you can just Feint with one Pokémon and use a targeted attack with the other. If the Pokémon with Feint doesn't have much else to do during that round, I'd consider it a legitimate use.

But Feint takes up a moveslot, and again, it's just too situational. What if your pokemon DOES have something to do? What if the enemy is a Ghost type? What if the Non-Protecting pokemon won't be able to KO anything next turn? (Allowing you to attack the Protector next turn) What if the Pokemon doesn't use Protect and you could've just attacked? Too much uncertainty to make it worthy of a moveslot, imo, especially looking at the Pokemon that learn it.

3. I think you're right about this. But you can't sweep a team with Endure/Reversal in 2v2, either.

Depends on the setting. Reversal is meh, but things like Endure-Salac Groudon are capable of inflicting some serious damage vs. the right teams.

4. I agree with you here. Imprison does Feint's job better, and to both opponents to boot. The only caveat is that Feint has a priority modifier and Imprison doesn't. So, Feint can be used in emergency situations. Also, Imprison won't help against Detect, rare though it may be.

Your Imprisoner can actually use moves besides Feint, too. But when you get yourself in these "emergency situations", how do you know your Feinter will even be on the field? Too situational.

5. True. Ghosts are immune. Of course, in the Explosion case, Ghosts won't be using Protect anyway. You could use Foresight or Odor Sleuth instead, but that's another discussion.

Yup. Foresight is extremely underrated imo.

6. I have to completely disagree with this. Just as an example, consider this:

Hitmontop @ Intimidate
Fake Out
Feint
Mach Punch
Helping Hand

Voilà: a terrific support Pokémon. Intimidate and Fake Out help you set up any sort of hard-hitting partner. Helping Hand gives your partner's attacks extra punch and Feint makes sure that they hit through Protect and Detect when they need to. Mach Punch for STAB damage. The damaging attacks are all weak, but they allow you to completely eschew Speed. With all those extra EVs, you can make Hitmontop into quite the tank.

Something with 50 base HP (Despite its good defenses) cannot tank very well, especially in 2v2. And even if it had 100 base HP, what's to stop your opponents from bypassing Hitmontop and attacking your other pokemon? The moveset is fine, though a Helping Hand is a pretty bad 2v2 choice when you think of how much more damage you could be doing and how much more type coverage you could have if you just used another Pokemon that actually does damage. Oh, and Dusknoir outclasses this completely except for Fake Out and Intimidate. Which is unfortunate because really, this is as good as a Pokemon set trying to incorporate Feint will get.

Basically my point is that Feint is an alright move in itself, but it's just too situational to try to base sets around or let it take up a valuable moveslot. Even when the planets all align and you find yourself in a situation you need to use it and are able to, the result won't be as game-breaking as many would think.

 

[Footnote]

Basically my point is that Feint is an alright move in itself, but it's just too situational to try to base sets around or let it take up a valuable moveslot. Even when the planets all align and you find yourself in a situation you need to use it and are able to, the result won't be as game-breaking as many would think.

We can agree that Feint is very situational and that oftentimes it's not worth the moveslot. I definitely don't think it's game-breaking. Like I said, I'll probably try it out, and if I find myself never using it, I'll get rid of it.

I shouldn't have used the word 'tank' when talking about Hitmontop. I just mean that it's more durable than one might think. And you'll notice that my set for it is supportive, not defensive. If your opponents bypass it, they have to accept that most of your other Pokémon's attacks will be Helping-Handed. For this to be even close to functional, Hitmontop's ally will have to be fast, fast, fast. Saying that Dusknoir outclasses it makes little sense to me since they're different type and have almost completely different movepools.

 

[Yoshi King]

Wow guys, I'm really happy my discussion has come so far while I've been gone (I've been studying for my Japanese midterm this week @_@).

It's a shame that some of my earlier ideas were proven incapable of working (Ie. Ghost-type feint users, as well as my rock+steel type X_X), and as such I personally feel that only Lucario could be a "safe" feint user unless you were using a Pokemon that might be easily weakened, such as Heracross (due to type disadvantages, not necessarily defensive stats).

Regarding the point brought up about Imprison- While it is a nice option, I think it's just as situational as Feint. In any given 2-Pokemon team, only one Pokemon is going to have Protect (usually), and even then, you'd have to use Imprison again when more Pokemon came in, since I assume 2, maybe 3 Pokemon max on any given team would have Protect. For that reason, I personally think Feint would be more useful. It's easy to predict and use.

 

[Vampy34]

as footnote has pointed out Feint can lead to some 2v2 game breakers.

Your Feinter and Protect Poke

VS

Enemy Exploader and Protector

Feint the Enemy Protector, Your duder protects, enemy exploades. You loose one, they loose two.

Situational yes, but potentionally game breaking when it works.

 

[leafgreen386]

@Yoshi King: IIrc, imprison now affects ALL of your opponents pokemon, even after they switch/faint. So no, it is not as situational as feint, especially when you can block other moves, such as eq or ib.

 

[Yoshi King]

@Yoshi King: IIrc, imprison now affects ALL of your opponents pokemon, even after they switch/faint. So no, it is not as situational as feint, especially when you can block other moves, such as eq or ib.

Oh wow, seriously? What a boost! I retract my statement then, Imprison is a completely viable move in place of Protect, though if they use endure for a salac boost or something, then that might be a bit worse (though in that same thread, Feint would be equally useless).

Thank you for that bit of info, I had no idea Imprison was upgraded this generation.

 

[Lord Gloom]

Am I the only person who prefers Dig/Fly over Protect/Detect for attacks that hit all combatants?

 

[Yoshi King]

Am I the only person who prefers Dig/Fly over Protect/Detect for attacks that hit all combatants?

The problem with Dig (and only Dig) is that if an opponent uses Earthquake or Magnitude (which is very likely), you'll be OHKO'd without question (unless your Pokemon is a flying-type/levitator, but even then... it might still hit) due to the extra power that affects diggers.

For the same reason, anything using Fly will get OHKO'd by Thunder (which is likely to be more prevalent in double battles), though Fly on certain Pokemon is certainly more viable. The only problem is that it still allows your opponent to predict who Fly is going to hit, and set up accordingly.

 

[Lord Gloom]

True, of course, but I just prefer a chance to do damage over none.

 

[Footnote]

I plan to try out Dig and Fly on some of my 2v2 teams soon. Actually, I'm going to use Feint alongside them to make sure they hit when they need to.

I hope Imprison does work the way you say it does. It's how Imprison should always have worked. I think we need someone to test it, though. I don't remember seeing it in the research thread.

 

[Alysanne]

Am I the only person who prefers Dig/Fly over Protect/Detect for attacks that hit all combatants?

It has to do with priority/learning pool. Protect goes before all of the moves it needs to. Dig/Fly roll over to popular (if very situational; I'm looking at you Earthquake) 2v2 moves and you still have to faster than what you're trying to avoid.

Endure+Salac Groudon won't be nearly as strong now that Earthquake has 75% power. It could still have potential with a Shiftry (Fake Out, Grass Knot for the weather battle v.s. Kyogre). Main problem that I see Groudon having are:

1. You want to be slower than Kyogre to get the weather you desire.
2. You want to be fast enough to outspeed stuff after Salac boost.

These are somewhat... not synergistic?

Therefore I call for... Rock Polish boost+"whatever the berry that increases Attack is called" (and a proper EV spread)!

 

[pooch]

@Yoshi King: IIrc, imprison now affects ALL of your opponents pokemon, even after they switch/faint.

Does this mean it even affects your opponents Pokemon that aren't in play? For the rest of the game? This needs testing, cos I'm using this baby if its true.

 

[Alysanne]

Does this mean it even affects your opponents Pokemon that aren't in play? For the rest of the game? This needs testing, cos I'm using this baby if its true.

... You're opponent's pokemon that aren't in play will not be using any moves, so no, Imprison does not affect them. If they switch in while the Imprisoner is alive they should be under the effects (I haven't tested this yet, so I can't confirm).

 

[Big Bayou]

Let's clear some stuff up.

Thank you for that bit of info, I had no idea Imprison was upgraded this generation.

It wasn't. Imprison affects any enemy on the field as long as the Imprisoner stays alive. Which means that even if you switch out, the new users switched in will not be free from Imprisonment. It's always worked like this, hence why it has been proven to be such a useful component of a ton of 2v2 strategies.

I assume 2, maybe 3 Pokemon max on any given team would have Protect.

Nah. I assume you're talking about a full six on six 2v2 battle. The majority of Pokemon on most 2v2 teams, at least in RSE, carried Protect (Or some other move that negated damage in some way like Endure or Fake Out), especially if Stadium Mode was the rule as it was in the JAA. This is why Imprison is so much better at getting around Protect, as with Feint, you give up a turn to Feint and it requires heavy counter-prediction to prove useful consistently, two weaknesses that Imprison is without.

 

[Alysanne]

I assume 2, maybe 3 Pokemon max on any given team would have Protect.

Most likely 4-6 will actually have Protect. The fact that Protect can be learned by everything and is a buy-able TM means that you have to play as though everything your opponent is using has Protect (or some other Protect-like move).