Soma2035

EDIT: FC is 2277 - 8977 - 9507

Ulti, play a wifi match against me?

I'm almost 100% sure this has been pointed out before, but if it hasn't, "There's two kinds of people in the world, doc: those who have a plan prepared for when zombies take over the earth, and those who don't. We call those last people dinner." You quoted it incorrectly. :P

Focus Sash is sort of wasted on a Rattata. So many things stop it... ghosts, entry hazards, leftovers, sandstorm, hail, priority moves, status, the list goes on. If you're saving up for a Focus Sash, give it to something more useful. :P

1. Psybeam is better than Psycho Cut, but Psychic is better. In-game, Psybeam will do. Once you're ready to battle people, invest in a new Alakazam, with proper nature, EVs, and a Psychic TM. Or actually, consider a more sturdy Pokemon. Alakazam is too vulnerable to priority moves. He's like a more vulnerable Gengar with no immunities. True, he has more special attack, but he rarely gets to take advantage of it. 2. Machamp is actually very good against people, but only with a specific set. Ray's sort of right, avoid Machamp for now. 3. Actually, level 100s are necessary under standard rules, because standard rules don't require every Pokemon to be level 100. In other words, under Standard rules, someone could easily have a low level on their team, and WANT it to be lower level (see: FEAR Ratata. And no I don't have one on any of my teams.) The light screen really took me by surprise. I was expecting an agilgross, so that switch was a painful choice for me. And yea I found the Butterfree a bit weird lol.

I honestly have no idea what I was thinking, switching Circines in like that. There was no reason whatsoever for you to have used a fire attack when Close Combat would've brutally murdered my Scizor too... o.O Good game nonetheless. Out of curiosity, what set was your metallic-last-man-standing running? If you don't mind sharing of course.

Nope, I don't use MSN. MSN has never worked with my computer for some reason. I have Skype... and I guess Tip.It. How about PM-ing me here?

Shadow, up for a match? I found another team, this one's all level 100s. I don't quite remember how it plays but it looks good enough. Man, I haven't touched my Pokemon game forever...

Eh. If I revealed why they're not 100, it would kind of defeat the point of them being under 100. I guess I could build a normal team to play against you with. It's a pity though, I really wanted to see if the gimicky team would work. I assume you're going by standard rules? No Ubers, Sleep Clause, Species Clause, OHKO/Evasion Clause?

Using a Haunter instead of a Gengar isn't just unexpected. It's stupid. There's no reason to use a Pokemon for something when there's a Pokemon that does exactly that, but better. Espeon isn't a bad Pokemon, but using it for special offense is foolish. If you want a special attacker on your team, there are countless Pokemon that fit the bill. Like I said before, Azelf performs the same role, only with less predictability, a better ability, and better stats. Azelf is a better special attacker than Espeon, if you want a special attacker, choosing Espeon does not make sense. There's nothing "unexpected" about using Espeon. Someone can simply type in "http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/espeon." Guess what? Now they see your Espeons moves, stats, common sets, and counters... all within less than 30 seconds. Espeon has three things going for it: High Special Attack, acceptable Special Defense, decent Speed. Obviously, defense is out of the question since it doesn't have the HP to wall anything. An Espeon wall isn't a threat at all. So what are the advantages of Espeon? Fast sweeper, or baton pass. Phazing wall comes in, and once you attack, the element of surprise is lost. Even though Azelf is more common, it's still more unexpected. Azelf has higher speed, and incredible special attack AND attack. Backing that is a wide movepool. Azelf can run a physical attack set, a special attack set, a gimmicky trick set, a mixed attacking set, and so on. Unlike with Espeon, it's very hard for one counter to stop all of these sets. The result is similar: your opponent switches something in, scouts out your set, and then you lose your element of surprise. But the difference is the amount of damage you cause before this happens. With Espeon, Blissey comes in safely. Status? So what? Natural Cure. But they can certainly put status on you. Substitute? Great, you get one Calm Mind... but most special attackers can't handle Blissey even with a +1 boost, and Blissey can seismic toss your subs away. With Azelf, Blissey needs to think twice. What if this is a physical Azelf? Skarmory needs to think twice. What if this is a special Azelf? A mixed wall needs to think twice. What if he tricks me? If they guess wrong, they have a crippled or dead wall. Unexpectedness comes from the strategy, not the Pokemon. Just because a Pokemon is unexpected doesn't mean the strategy will be too. EDIT: Well, I finished a team. It's anything but standard and I honestly have no idea how well this will work, but if anyone here has a team too, I'll give it a shot. This team has low level Pokemon on it intentionally though so you'd need your Pokemon at 100, setting to 100 won't work.

Seeing as your team only has three members, I'm guessing this is for battle tower? Right away, I'd say Starmie should be running Timid. If you want a sweeping Starmie, Starmie @ Life Orb Timid - 40 HP. 252 Special Attack, 216 Speed ~ Surf / Hydro Pump ~ Thunderbolt / Grass Knot ~ Ice Beam ~ Recover Life Orb is 30% at the cost of 10% of your HP. 216 speed outspeeds base 110s, which means Gengar notably. Surf or Hydro Pump, choice is yours, although I'd personally never risk the miss. Even though Psychic gets STAB, I wouldn't recommend it. With the 4th generation of Pokemon, Psychic has become more and more of an inferior attacking type. It's resisted by Steel and blocked entirely by dark. It's super effective on Poison types and Fighting types. However, what fighting types do you really see? Lucario is part steel, so it's neutral. Infernape is frail enough the SE doesn't matter. Psychic is good against Heracross and Machamp. Heracross, usually being scarfed, will simply megahorn you. That makes one OU fighting type that Psychic is necessary against. How about poison? OU has two good psychic types, one being Gengar, the other being Tentacruel. Tentacruel is a special wall and will survive even a STAB SE Psychic. Gengar is slower than Starmie, and frail. Unless it's a scarfgar or sashgar, it's not staying. In other words, unless the Pokemon *must* use psychic as its stab (Azelf usually runs Psychic, and in this case, it's a good choice), you should not use a psychic type attack. Starmie gets an excellent STAB in Surf / Hydropump already. Save your moveslot for coverage instead. Staraptor isn't the best choice of a physical sweeper. Why not try a scarfed Flygon? It has helpful ground and electric immunites, plenty of resistances including against Stealth Rock. If you do go with Flygon though, your last Pokemon should certainly be a steel type. Dragons are weakest to ice and dragon, both of which steel types resist. Consider Heatran? (Is he allowed in battle tower?) Bronzong? Jirachi? Magnezone? Steel types are great with 11 resistances and one immunity.

Are you playing Platinum? If so, definitely consider a Rotom Form over Dusknoir. Rotom forms have a different base stat distribution, one that makes them very good defensively. Your team does run Gliscor, so Scizor isn't too dangerous. Your team is actually fairly resistant against Scizor so that's a huge upside to it. Azelf should definitely run flamethrower though, otherwise if he gets Scizor in on Azelf, he essentially gets a free kill. I don't know about Dusknoir, I get the feeling Dusknoir won't like taking a SE CB Pursuit running off of maxed 130 attack either. Scizor is good, but not gamebreaking as Garchomp was.

First, I didn't see HP Ice on your list, I saw HP Fire. Second, HP Ice won't kill Aerodactyl. He'll focus sash, taunt you, set up rocks, and die. That's what suicide leads are for. Now, his Pokemon has accomplished precisely what it was meant to do. You must now either switch out your Roserade and give him the upper hand, or, you can stay in and lose your Roserade to his revenge killer. Do you really feel this is a successful lead? The current march statistics show these as the current most popular anti-leads: Metagross - 8% Azelf - 6% Jirachi - 5% Infernape - 5% Aerodactyl - 5% Let's see how you fair against these. Assuming you meant HP Ice, not HP Fire, Metagross deals with your Roserade without trouble. You can't dent it, and lead gross runs lum berry fairly frequently. He can take care of your Roserade without trouble, and set up rocks. Lead Azelf does the same thing Suicide Aero does, it taunts you. You can hit it, but you won't kill it thanks to sash. In fact, Azelf will probably live two of your attacks, meaning after setting up his stealth rocks, he can also explode, killing Roserade or severely hurting whatever you send in (I don't see any ghosts on your team). Jirachi is a nicer match up for you, I'm really not sure how that one would end. Infernape is another story. Turn 1, Fake out. Turn 2, Fire blast. Dead Roserade who never has a chance to do anything, because that's all lead apes do. Aerodactyl, I've already explained. Against the top 5 leads, which is almost a third of all teams on Shoddy during March, against only one of them would you start out on the right foot. Is that really acceptable? Especially as, if I pointed out, if you carry out your plan you are contradicting some of your own Pokemon. Namely, Espeon. Synchronize does not do well with Toxic [bleep]es on the field.

What are the rules of this tournament? I'll be honest, that team doesn't look like it would fare too well in standard. Roserade is decent... in UU. As an OU lead, Rosey is horribly outclassed. You can expect a match to open like this. Opponent sent out Aerodactyl! You sent out Roserade! Aerodactyl used Taunt! Now what? You can't do anything to the Aerodactyl with those 2 moves. 90 Base Speed is great in UU, not so pretty in OU where Azelfs and Aerodactyls run rampant. Taunt is also too popular to make this set effective. On your Lickylicky set... first, I don't see aqua tail anywhere, I see thunder punch. Second, it's outclassed. Consider Bronzong instead, with its multiple resists and immunes. A levitating bronzong is immune to ground and poison, and resists tons of different types, with really only one big weakness: fire. It doesn't get curse, but with its much lower base speed, curse is hardly necessary. However, you do get excellent support moves like stealth rock. You could also make this even more painful: trick and macho brace. When you have macho brace, your speed is cut in half. When you find something dangerous, you use trick: now your opponent wears the macho brace, cutting THEIR speed in half. You like the speed cut, but if something's really dangerous, this is a great way out. Bronzong also gets explosion and screens. Gliscor is good. I'm not sure how it fits in with your team but individually, it's good. Infernape has a pretty weird EV distribution, I'd look at it again. What are the speed IVs for, specifically? Why so little special attack? Mixapes typically run maxed special attack. After this is where things go south. Espeon? Salac berry? What? With its 65 base hp and 60 base defense, Espeon isn't going to live to see Salac berry go off, against a decent opponent. Pinch berries overall aren't too useful unless you build a set meant to use them. Then there's the Pokemon. Espeon is outclassed pretty badly in standard. There's only a few sets an Espeon can run that other Pokemon can't run better, and your set isn't one of them. Look at Azelf. 5 less special attack for 5 more speed. 125 is more than sufficient. Levitate is a great ability... especially as synchronize is being fouled up by your lead. Remember: every last point of speed counts. Attack or special attack, not necessarily. While on that subject, Azelf also gets equally high base attack. This adds to its unpredictability. Even running the same set, on an Azelf instead of an Espeon, means your opponent will need to ask him/herself, "Does this Azelf carry physical or special attacks? Does it have explosion?" With Espeon, it's less obvious. I'm not saying you have to use Azelf, but there is a wide variety of Pokemon that can do what your Espeon is doing, only better. In fact, even look at Gengar. Same special attack, same speed. The difference? Gengar is immune to fighting, normal, and ground attacks. Espeon gets an ability to conflicts with your leads purpose, which is setting up toxic [bleep]es. Synchronize doesn't work if your opponent is already poisoned. I don't know a lot about Drapion so I can't say too much on it. You're missing a nature though. Definitely go with Jolly if you're maxing speed, so you can at least tie a maxed base speed 95. Also, if you just want a physical sweeper, consider this, the absolutely best OU Pokemon right now: Scizor @ Choice Band (Technician Ability) Adamant - 252 Attack, 192 HP, 64 Speed ~ Bullet Punch ~ Pursuit ~ U-Turn ~ Superpower This set is really a monster. Bullet Punch has priority. 40 Power looks weak. Then you realize: Scizor's technician raises it by 50%. 60 still isn't the best, but it's decent. Then consider Scizor's monster attack (130 base), the choice band, and the STAB bonus. You have yourself a very, very dangerous Pokemon. Now, the key with this set is to play carefully. The first few times you bring Scizor in, you want to see how your opponent reacts. Instead of going for your killer move (which everyone knows about, bullet punch is very obvious), you U-Turn. Your opponent isn't going to leave an obviously disadvantaged Pokemon against Scizor, so when they switch, you hit their new Pokemon with U-turn right away for some quick damage. On top of that, before the turn ends, you switch in a Pokemon that will still have the upper hand. After doing this a few times you'll get used to seeing what switches in or what not. Clear out what's possibly able to stop your Scizor, then just crunch your way through what's left. You need to consider your team more carefully. What's your game plan? Do your Pokemon all have roles in this plan? Finally, are there Pokemon that can perform better in these roles? In your case, at least half your team are inferior to similar Pokemon. It's okay to use UU Pokemon, and there are advantages to it, but you don't want to do it at random. Throwing an Espeon on your team over better special sweepers is not a good idea. If you want to use Espeon, look at Espeon's movepool, find something unique Espeon does, and incorporate that into your overall strategy.

Well I started to make a team, but it got held up because I havn't been able to acquire the pokemon I need. If you have an elekid (an elcterizer with it would really help), or a shroomish, I would be able to start training again. For my team, I'm not worrying about EV's, but I will try and get good natures and good movesets. I just don't want to spend a whole lot of time on a team. EVs are the easy part. EV-ing a Pokemon should take less than 10 minutes... less time than leveling it to 100, really. Good natures are actually more troublesome than EVs should be. The real painful part is IVs. It's really okay to ignore most of them, but HP and Speed IVs can't really be ignored when making a decent team. Unfortunately, you must also breed constantly if you intend to get the desired IVs.

Does anyone plan to make a competitive team? I've got a couple new team ideas but I haven't bothered making them yet. If people here plan on playing on WiFi though, I might get Platinum and build myself a couple teams.

1. Focus Sash is 1-use, however, battle tower and multiplayer battles do not change the status of your Pokemon. In other words, if you put it on a Level 1 Ratata and FEAR a wild Pokemon in Victory Road, your Focus Sash is gone. If you take the same sash and use it during WiFi and it activates, you will still have it afterwards. 2. They are the same move, except Protect is easier to get IIRC (TM move). It's also worth noting that they share a counter, so if you use Protect, both Protect and Detect have 50% accuracy the next use (you can't protect-detect-protect-detect as long as you please).

Of course it's player killing. Your friend with 26k is a player, is he not? You are attacking him, and killing him, are you not? That sounds like player killing to me...

Uh, OU focuses a lot on team work too. There's offensive, balanced, stall, rain dance, sandstream. You still get the odd hail team now and then, sun teams are beginning to show up more often now too. Actually, rain is becoming increasingly common in OU, thanks to Manaphy testing... It sounds like you're just biased against OU, probably because you don't like the dominant Pokemon in it. But OU really isn't any more or less centralized than UU, barring the presence of Scizor.

Porygon2 > PorygonZ

Actually, people use UUs in both OU and Ubers... Ray, do you actually play against people? You'd be surprised. UU is more centralized than OU is. If you don't believe me, here are the current usage stats (February 2009): http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51725 Especially, look at the popular leads and their movesets. And realize that Crobat is banned now, Electrode having replaced most of them... with 50% or more carrying rain dance...

There are a lot more options in OU than in UU. In OU, you have 470 Pokemon available. In UU, you have only ~420 Pokemon available. And UU is just as centralized as OU is, in terms of what actually is used.

I'm willing to bet that almost any person here on Tip.It, or many of those people on RSOF, could find one thing truly wrong with Runescape, and fix it for the better. Jagex is a decent company, don't get me wrong, but people make mistakes. Smarter people make, correspondingly, bigger mistakes. I don't think anyone thinks they can run this game better than Jagex. Else they would simply start their own MMO, and if they were right, kick Runescape straight out of the market. But that doesn't mean everything Jagex does is right. They've made some pretty big blunders as well, that most of us would've certainly handled better: - How about their public statement, clear on the front page, that telling someone you want to trade when you have no intention of doing so, only to lure them to the wilderness, does not qualify as a deception? - Andrew himself saying, on the front page, that "junk trading" isn't a problem... because it gets around the wrong prices? That raises a big question... why are the prices wrong? Why aren't we fixing *them* rather than allowing people to get around the limit? - Creation of a God Wars boss... except they don't implement the anti-blocking feature they've already implemented with Dagannoth Kings and other monsters that can be blocked for easy kills, and they put slanted corners in Commander Zilyana's room, which have been previously used as safespots at other bosses. - The entire Stealing Creation fiasco, from start to finish. - The GOP bugs that persist until today, that have been reported numerous times and ignored. Jagex makes some pretty silly mistakes too. Now, the majority of the rants you'd see are caused because updates generally help one group at the cost of another. For any decision, there will usually be dissent. But a lot of times, you have to consider that no one is perfect. Jagex is definitely superior in game design, but they do make their fair share of mistakes too, and handle situations poorly that many other people could handle better.

I thought that way until I tried to play UU... UU is pretty centralized now too. :(

Really? Cause I personally have to say that a porygonz w/ discharge, partnered with an electivire = awesome. A speed boost for my heavy hitter while sending out damage to the opponent's pokemon fails to look like a bad thing to me. Well, be careful. The Double Battle metagame is slightly... skewed at the moment. If you go out with that sort of team, expect to see something like this happen... Lickylicky used Protect! Gengar used Explosion! Lickylicky protected itself! Porygon-Z fainted! Electivire fainted! Then as you send out whatever you have next... (Opponent's second Pokemon) used Protect! Lickylicky used Explosion! If you're not fighting an explosion team, you're probably fighting a rain dance team. Discharge has its place in doubles play thanks to being able to potentially help your ally, but it's noticeably lacking in singles play. Ray is right, if you're playing singles, gambling on a stat boost isn't worth it, T-Bolt is almost always better.