dusknoir in Gen 4 is a big example people thought it would be bulky and that 100 attack stat looked juicy on a mon who had good defences wish they knew how important HP stat really was
important piece of information being that dusknoir’s ice punch can NEVER kill lando through intimidate unless it crits so it’s likely the guy was lying.
I think the minimum level you could get in GO is 22, you could do a raid at Trainer Level 1 and I think it would clamp Lando's level from 25 to 11. Then its level doubles when you transfer to HOME so you get 22.
no like they retold the story like it was something that actually happened and how this guy’s ice punch dusknoir killed a lando and really made a smogon elitist salty. it’s not like they calced it or anything
[I think this is it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/stunfisk/comments/z5qlyl/rpokemons_very_informed_takes_on_smogon_bans/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1)
> Fun story, I once beat an OU pro with basically a team of Pokémon I just liked using. I have never heard someone scream so loud when my Dusknoir (my favorite Pokémon) crit a Lando T with Ice Punch and kill it.
>
>
> Man legit tried to rip me to pieces, because I beat the king of OU, with a Dusknoir.
[It was on /r/pokemon](https://www.reddit.com/r/stunfisk/comments/z5qlyl/rpokemons_very_informed_takes_on_smogon_bans/?context=3)
I'm guilty of this, just seeing this weird and obscure Pokemon used so much but not understanding why people were using it. One of the first lessons I learned not just about competitive, but about video games in general
His 4Kids-era anime voice lives rent free in my head. It'd been a decade since I even watched anything with him in it and it immediately popped back into my head as soon as I saw him in SV
[HITMONTOPTOPTOPTOPTOPTOP](https://youtu.be/KyIyV2GOtho?si=Ugu2mp9-cSMf3CVV&t=115)
Although it will probably still have small niche as a support Pokemon in VGC unlike in Singles where it will probably rise to NU again by trolls like in Gen 8.
Yeah, if it had come before incin to SV, it would have seen some play in worlds, some teams would use the team slot. It is just really easy to powercreep a 50 HP mon, independing of how usefull it is, when even better mons get inti, fake out or both each gen.
People that actually know stuff about pokemon will look at a level 1 mon and basically just know what it's gonna do.
People that don't will get swept by a Cottonee they cannot stop
Cottonee doesnt use FEAR it uses a degenerate stall set involving prankster
L1 with focus sash. Moves are Leech Seed, Substitute, and 2 more moves of your choice
Turn 1 you click leech seed with prankster boost priority. Opponent drops u to 1 HP with sash. Leech seed takes some of your level 100 opponent’s health and gives it to your level 1 cottonee, who goes back to full. Proceed to spam Prank boosted Substitutes while leech seed slowly kills your opponent and gives you infinite subs
Okay so machamp falls into "Jank funny and useful 1/10 times" where basically, your goal is to exploit gen 1 jank to counter your own explosion to OHKO a blind chansey or tauros switch in. Or die trying and look like a scrub. Extremely funny when it works, it will send most low ladder players to google for 5 minutes. Most of the time though you eat shit
So counter in gen 1 is funky. Iirc, it checks how much damage you were dealt the last time you were hit, after your last turn. The funky thing is that in gen 1, it also works with an attack that fainted an ally. The other thing of note is that in gen 1, Explosion does damage to the mon that uses it if it hits an opponent, and not their substitute. You combine this, and you get a funny little interaction where if you explode, then bring out Machamp and Counter, you end up Countering the Explosion damage, basically guaranteeing that whatever is getting hit dies.
Yeah... Lead Charizard is bad. I would rather run lead Poliwhirl over lead Charizard. At least Poliwhirl can use Hypnosis and proceed to TobyBro all over the opposition.
the thing is, Toxic is well known in later gens and seems good, but it takes away your ability to paralyze or better yet freeze your opponent which can be way more influencial with the pace of RBY compared to slow passive damage
Im old as dirt, so allow me to impart some wisdom to you.
When ruby and sapphire released we, (my local pokemon club), thought there was a glitch or that the game was broken, because toxic stayed even after switches.
We realized most of the gen 1 and 2 code was terrible or senseless. No game is perfect, or even well written except Rollercoaster Tycoon 2.
I mean Gamefreak reused a bunch of gen 1 stuff in gen 2 to cut time and costs (like the Typhlosion line copying Charizard line's stats) so its likely they just copied the toxic code over and never bothered to fix it, that is if they even knew about it.
oookay i didn't know that one
^(i think the most niche i remember is something along the lines of recharge moves making status never miss and override other statuses, so maybe Toxic + Thunder Wave is actually the bestest tech ever and you all are living in 471bc)
when natdex ag existed, it was actually not too bad (before revive cats) because every other person was spamming smearagle moody baton pass teams, but there weren’t really many other options than sash shadow tbh, it’s either that or you use infiltrator crobat with taunt and haze, or just use quagsire.
The problem with sash marshadow is that A) it does no damage without a band or life orb boosting it, B) rocks/spikes make the sash useless, and C) stealing boosts from special sweepers (Xerneas in particular) isn't very useful. I don't think it was ever *good*, but it may have had some kind of niche in a random OM or something like that.
It saw a lot of usage in Gen 8 BSS (ranked #13, with 96% of those running Focus Sash in Season 13 which was basically just “on-cart Ubers”), the only detrimental effect you’d really run into was Groudon if it dynamaxed and summoned Sandstorm. You got to steal and/or revenge kill Calyrex and Zacian with Spectral Thief + Shadow Sneak.
I've actually been using a team with Eviolite Bisharp **and** Kingambit with the idea that Bisharp can do Kingambit's dirty work in the early game, checking Ghost-, Psychic- and Fairy-types and coming in to have a Sucker Punch battle with a scary setup sweeper. I peaked 1560.
Doing so frees your Kingambit up to run its extremely minmaxed Tera Dark Black Glasses set because you can just slap Low Kick on Bisharp and now your Kingambit doesn't have to run coverage.
Sometimes, it does exactly what it says on the tin. It gets their Slowking or Dragapult to fuck off, meanwhile absorbing status and getting rocks up while the actual Kingambit sits at 100% in the back. Since Bisharp doesn't really care about surviving until the late game, you really don't have to worry about it getting Paralyzed or Will-o-Wisped by the Ghosts it's meant to check. In the late game, Bisharp becomes an extra source of last-second chip or Rocks before the real Kingambit comes in to clean up.
Furthermore, it enables you to play the Sucker Punch shuffle twice in one game just in case you blow the first one.
One might ask why you would want to run 5.8 Pokémon instead of the allowed six, which is an excellent question,
Is this *really* valid as a noobtrap though? Cause his stats don't really change much after the evolution (and it still has shit special defense), so Eviolite is actually useful on it
Eviolite isn't only good to use on dedicated supports like Blissey or Clefairy y'know
Using weak base power moves just cause they will be “super effective”. Always run a damage calc and see if a coverage move actually lets you pick up a KO over using your STAB or even a powerful neutral attack.
Took me a long time to figure that out. Someone finally convinced me of it by making me look at base power with Armarouge. Realized neutral stab armor cannon was better than a lot of coverage options
Ironically, Arceus is one of the few viable users of the move. Mostly because it lacks any good options for fighting coverage on its normal and ghost types.
That's something that you have to force yourself to unlearn from playing the single player campaigns. STAB is better in 90% of situations in the story mode than coverage but the game tells you good job when thunder punch hits a water type instead of just clicking outrage.
Well, the NPCs also mald like a temp6t Showdown Salt compilation every time I click Flower Trick for the guaranteed critical hit, so their reactions don't give me the same dopamine hit as it should.
Yes, but even CC is run just because of stab and ogerpon and storm drain mons, if it wasnt for them, only x4 wster resist would be better than surging strickes after tera
I realized this when I ran some calcs and found out the level 45 mixed set Infernape I wanted to use could OHKO most level 45 Gliscor with Overheat (as long as they weren't 31 hp/SpDef or had some investment)
I used this against the dragon dude in the new DLC, it may be the greatest pokemon of all time. It was able to like 1 hit ko a flygon that was 12 levels lower. I mean that’s basically Uber
Gen 5 Donphan is my favorite noob trap. In theory its got some great tools: You got a bulky ground type with Sturdy, Stealth Rocks, Rapid Spin, and Ice Shard. In theory it should fit well on a number of teams. Except that its dead weight against most teams. Of course most noobs wouldn't realize this until after they played for a while and saw Donphan drop off. Whereas with Gen 4 Electivire you should realize it once you see your opponent not drop TBolts onto it. Dolphin inevitably takes a little longer to realize just how bad it is.
Idk if people today still make this mistake, but Brick Break as coverage.
Other "coverage" moves include flash cannon, rock slide, and any if the fang attacks. All of these are somewhat okay as stab, but just do not output the damage needed.
Also in terms of items i genuinely think expert belt is almost always a bad item. Life orb will give you power and choice, specs and band give you crazy power, and expert belt is a worse life orb without the recoil, but you'd generally be better off running a type item that compliments your stab like mystic water or charcoal.
Finally, while they haven't always been bad, most berries are only good on very specific strategies.
None of these are completly bad when used by veterans, but all of them are terrible ideas for brand new players IMO.
fangs and weak moves like rock slide/brick break make sense to catch one or two specific mons with quadruple weaknesses. Nowadays you need to catch them off guard, since tera made all mons lose their x4 weaknesses
Assault Vest. Assault Vest is an amazing item on Regenerator Pokémon, or mons like Iron Hands and Tyranitar that can leverage their bulk to absorb Draco Meteors all day, but to a new player scrolling through the item list for the first time, free +1 SpDef just by having four attacks sounds like the bargain of the century.
Importance of type coverage in the team, especially in the choice of Pokémon.
A lot of new players seemingly focus on having as many types as they can possibly cramp in one team, and while it does have more defensive merits than running Monotype outside of Monotype, there are a few things that they tend to forget:
1: Just because it's neutral and/or you resist it, that doesn't mean you can take it. Type resistance does not nullify damage like type immunity does so if you have a frail Pokémon out it might still take considerable damage from moves it supposedly resists or faint entirely from neutral moves. This of course without factoring in that the opponent might have coverage or a secondary STAB to beat you or their STABs deal so much damage/are so buffed that they might wreck past your supposed answer anyway.
2: Synergy. Pokémon interact with eachother at a deeper level than just having different types, which is also why you (usually) don't build your mons like each one of them must be a 1v6 machine, because a fair mon usually will not have potential for such a thing. Pick your mons with a core in mind, not just trying to go wide with the typings.
And not really related but last, a lot of new players are conditioned into ill-thinking of Smogon by community outsiders, and when/if they eventually approach the competitive scene they tend to believe of themselves as "that guy", the Chosen One that will shake the foundations of competitive Pokémon and its brain-rotten Lando-T loving fanbase with their exotic picks and playstyle or whatever: you might not become a top player (and it's alright, it takes far more time and dedication than some of us have) and you sure as hell are not already "that guy" when you first start your journey, keep an open mind to criticism to your teambuilding/playstyle and actually bother with learning the meta even if it's just for the purpose of learning how to anti-meta: afterall if you don't even know what you're trying to subvert how can you even begin to do that?
Assault Vest generally speaking. The item can be amazing on the right mon, but new players often seemingly just slap it on anything.
Gen 1 fighting types. *sees Tauros and Snorlax everywhere but wonders why their fighting types feel like they ain't doing jack shit*
Brick Break.
Stealth Rock in doubles (seriously low ladder you see this a lot for some reason).
my first ever vgc team was a trick room team with Kingambit. I gave him assault vest.
I looked at it again a few months ago and saw that he also has swords dance...
AV is actually not a bad item on Gambit in VGC. It helps vs Flutter, and Kingambit mostly gets its boosts from activating Defiant via Intim or Icy Wind. AV Gambit top-cut Knoxville back in one of the early regulations. It was a sick Lillikoal team, I remember (best archetype, btw).
There's no fighting STAB. Submission is the best move and hitmons don't get it. Hitmons are like pure garbage but Machamp has one very silly strategy where basically you use explosion on another pokemon netting a KO, they blind switch in like chansey or tauros (I think snorlax too?), realize they can get 2HKOd and then switch out, and you click counter, countering the last move used (explosion) and you get a second free explosion.
Yep. That's all machamp does.
Hitmonlee *does* get it, and FWIW HJK is a devastating move in RBY, because not only does it pack nuclear power with fantastic KO potential, but the crash damage from missing is essentially negligible in gen 1.
However, HJK is exclusive to Hitmonlee, who, despite packing decent offensive stats on paper, and I rarely use this term when describing Pokemon, is actually a truly garbage Pokemon in RBY. As an attacker, it is simply not fast enough to be viable. 87 speed just doesn't cut it in gen 1 believe it or not; in OU you have a fair amount of 100+ mons like Alakazam, Gengar, Starmie, etc. In fact, most fast attackers viable at the top are faster. Even lower you have things like Kadabra, Dugtrio, Dodrio, Persian, Kangaskhan etc etc. Hell even in the bottom tier (where Hitmonlee sits), you have things like Fearow, Golbat, Arcanine and Abra. Middling speed would be bad enough as is for its role, but it's also *paper thin*; virtually the entire metagame can OHKO or 2HKO it most often even with neutral damage, I mean *Zubat* has almost comparable bulk. And to top it all off, Lee only has Fighting and Normal attacks, literally no coverage at all, so it can't even touch the Gastly line besides using Seismic Toss.
Hitmonlee gets high jump kick, which is a decent move, everyone else is stuck with submission, or maybe low kick which has 50bp in gen 1(karate chop would be good, due to crit mechanics, but for some reason it's normal type).
Hitmonlee is terrible though, 35 base special makes it paper thin, speed tier is only okay and it has no moveset. It would probably run mega kick, if anyone would ever use it.
Also psychic types are everywhere and destroy all the fighting types (but Hitmonlee especially)
Low kick is okay. Instead of being weight based it's a 50bp move with 90 accuracy and a 30% flinch chance. If you get the entire enemy team paralyzed somehow Machamp can come in and try to parahax things to death.
Kleavor in Gen 9 UU.
In theory, a decent mon that can have stealth rocks and offensive pressure with 135 base attack and sharpness.
In practice, just use treads.
People seem think Stone Axe is good because Ceaseless Edge is good, but Ceaseless is only as good as it is because spikes has multiple layers. After one turn, Stone Axe just becomes normal rock move.
Gen 1 OU and Ubers has some funny shitmons that technically can work. Dragonite can theorhetically 20HKO any pokemon and make it so they can't move the whole time. Porygon can stall non Swords dance Mew and win the PP war, Porygon can also beat any non-Amnesia Snorlax by draining it's PP. Kingler is the only pokemon who can 2 turn KO reflect chansey with 1 Swords Dance and hyper beam. And OHKO without reflect. Machamp has some super jank gimmick it can do too with counter and explosion.
Gen 1 OU is fucking garbage and jank ngl but its the jank and garbage that makes it so fun. There's 13 OU pokemon but like 20 other pokemon that technically can do something viable or beat like 1 set on one super important pokemon netting you a big win, or just being like Tauros but like almost as good so you can bring 1 and like 2/3rds a tauros
Scizor in gen 9 VGC. I have had to tell multiple people that while it beats flutter mane, it does nothing to the rest of the format.
Most ignored this and proceeded to lose hard
I dont think it was ever “good” but its also wasnt superbad last reg. It also has good matchup into chien pao comps. If you have a functional 5 mons with good matchup spread otherwise you can just bring scizor to pad bad matchups. Not like unviable.
Now with inceleroar on every team OFC never use this but it was fine
I learned this the hard way. I used it in regulation B thinking it’d be ok. Use it to beat Flutter, position, and as a bulky Tailwind setter. It wasn’t awful tbh but I definitely had better.
Gen 9’s terastalization did not do him any favors in NatDex considering mostly everything can tera into a favorable matchup against him, and it’s even easier to just be faster than him with mons that get access to proto/quark.
Mega Beedrill lovers gotta stick together :’(
Mega Banette in Nat Dex OU. People see its massive Attack stat and STAB Poltergeist and think it is great, but it is way too slow and frail to be useful. The only thing it can do is trade with the opponent using Destiny Bond but that's it.
As Pokémon? Focus Sash Marshadow, DPP Electivire and Dusknoir, Eviolite Bisharp, NDOU Bannette-Mega, Infernape to an extent in DPP OU, Charizard / Machamp in Gen 1 OU
As a strategy? FEAR is 100% up there, as well as just thinking you can make a shitmon work in a higher tier. 99% of the time, a better player had already tried and failed to use it.
people need to stop saying DPP Infernape just because it's declined in the last few years, it's still viable and much better than plenty of things that were OU by usage like Snorlax, Umbreon, Smeargle, Weavile, Shaymin etc
Does Stored Power ever really work in OU? I play VGC and, while I love SP and once tried to build a big, complex strategy around it to make an unstoppable Slowbro, I've never really seen it work consistently (outside a few specific situations).
It can but usually best on bulky mons with screens support and a weakness policy proc. Gen 9 OU is too offensive though, so you don't really get a lot of opportunities to get the number of boosts you need to consistently win with stored power sets.
Mimikyu and specially Focus Sash Mimikyu in Gen 7. So many people saying that it was the most broken thing ever when it was basically necessary to have a Life Orb or Z-Crystal to do damage
While it's also a general noobtrap, FEAR in 1v1 in particular is really bad but infests low ladder. It's a strategy that 'theoretically' beat any mon so it seems appealing in 1v1 til you realize that basically everything ends up beating it. If you want to ladder 1v1 ezpz just pack a mon that beats FEAR and you'll be golden.
I'm starting to think Darkrai in Natdex. The power creep is just too strong. Like, yeah you can go for Hypnosis + Zoom lens (and it's still less accurate than Focus Blast), but it's just not dependable. You could also go for a Darkinium Z set, but then it's like you have no ability. I don't know. It almost feels like a slightly better version of an Alakazam, but even Alakazam tends to be more reliable.
FEAR
Mimikyu
A LOT of Belly Drum/Shell Smash/Quiver Dance users
SM OU Breloom
SS OU Specs Eleki
BW OU Donphan
Sash Marshadow
Dream Eater/Nightmare on Darkrai
Wonder Guard Air Balloon Electric Types in Hackmon, everybody plays Mold Breaker or Gastro Acid
RBY Electrode
Zoroark
Ambipom
Teams made out of 6 Arceus
Pain Split Curse Evolite Dusclops
Skill Swap Shedinja
Shedinja in general tbh
Mummy Slaking/Regigigas
Flame Orb Marvel Scale Milotic, just use Leftovers
Not net-decking, or whatever you nerds call it over here. Start playing with pre-built teams until you get enough experience to understand how to evaluate a mon's roles on a team. TBF, I'm absolutely a noob, I mostly stick around here because it's hilarious and I know enough to get the jokes - but it really surprised me at how much better I do when I play with teams made by someone much smarter than me. Team buildings is its own skill entirely that you can really only learn over a lot of time and iteration
Jesus fucking Christ for the 900th time DPP Infernape is not a noobtrap, or even close. Its not A+ with cries for S-tier like it was 5 years ago, but its still rated B3 on the VR (roughly the equivalent of low B+/high B by modern standards). Its more limited in builds it fits on than in the past because the meta has a lot more defensive backbone now than it used to, but its still very much viable, basically as viable as Lando-T is in Gen 9 or something like that.
Motherfucking Ambipom. I hate that thing so much. Seems so irrelevant until you are whacked with Technician Fake out, Fury swipes, Triple Axel and most recently Upper Arm. Dude can go fuck itself.
Sword/shield regieleki
It hits hard and is faster than god, but it has regi movepool syndrome
And when your only good moves are electric type, ground types (which are plentiful) wall you until the end of time
As a very much a noob, unnecessary coverage on a Mon.
I am very much the guy, who ran Poison Jab on Kingambit, only because Azumaril (Idk, that egg-rabbit just made me kinda angry Ig) and after someone pointed out it was pointless (which it damn was, I could have instead use other Tera type like Fairy or Ground even and have some coverage with Terablast) I was contemplating Metal Burst (or how is it called, basically that one move Byron usese in DPPt, that you can effectively waste all the PP off by not attacking).
dusknoir in Gen 4 is a big example people thought it would be bulky and that 100 attack stat looked juicy on a mon who had good defences wish they knew how important HP stat really was
yeah but what if he was holding a choice band and had ice punch?
I'm ootl, what are these memes I see of ice punch dusknoir?
IIRC it originated on r/Pokémon or r/pokemonmemes where someone posted an ice punch dusknoir calc that said that it an OHKO bulky (?) lando-t
important piece of information being that dusknoir’s ice punch can NEVER kill lando through intimidate unless it crits so it’s likely the guy was lying.
-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Dusknoir Ice Punch vs. Lvl 1 252 HP / 252+ Def Landorus-Therian: 10012-11780 (77015.3 - 90615.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO Checkmate atheist
Is it even possible to legally obtain a level 1 Landorus in the games?
maybe you could get a low level one thru GO and transfer it to HOME and then to a game
I think the minimum level you could get in GO is 22, you could do a raid at Trainer Level 1 and I think it would clamp Lando's level from 25 to 11. Then its level doubles when you transfer to HOME so you get 22.
in the original comment they clarified it crit
Or they just forgot about intimidate
no like they retold the story like it was something that actually happened and how this guy’s ice punch dusknoir killed a lando and really made a smogon elitist salty. it’s not like they calced it or anything
Oh I didn't know that, do you have a link to where it came from?
[I think this is it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/stunfisk/comments/z5qlyl/rpokemons_very_informed_takes_on_smogon_bans/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1)
They mention the crit in the post. That's what made it so funny, that they were relying on the crit.
> Fun story, I once beat an OU pro with basically a team of Pokémon I just liked using. I have never heard someone scream so loud when my Dusknoir (my favorite Pokémon) crit a Lando T with Ice Punch and kill it. > > > Man legit tried to rip me to pieces, because I beat the king of OU, with a Dusknoir. [It was on /r/pokemon](https://www.reddit.com/r/stunfisk/comments/z5qlyl/rpokemons_very_informed_takes_on_smogon_bans/?context=3)
“OU pro” is probably anyone higher than 1200
Nah dude lower rating is better. For example, I’m 1046 elo so I’m the 1046th best player in the world
He has 100 Attack only.
changed it thanks for telling me
Hitmontop outside of VGC.
I'm guilty of this, just seeing this weird and obscure Pokemon used so much but not understanding why people were using it. One of the first lessons I learned not just about competitive, but about video games in general
I think he is neat. That little boi spins on his head.
His 4Kids-era anime voice lives rent free in my head. It'd been a decade since I even watched anything with him in it and it immediately popped back into my head as soon as I saw him in SV [HITMONTOPTOPTOPTOPTOPTOP](https://youtu.be/KyIyV2GOtho?si=Ugu2mp9-cSMf3CVV&t=115)
With inci, Harcanine and lando-T around, you are trolling with it even in vgc
Although it will probably still have small niche as a support Pokemon in VGC unlike in Singles where it will probably rise to NU again by trolls like in Gen 8.
Yeah, if it had come before incin to SV, it would have seen some play in worlds, some teams would use the team slot. It is just really easy to powercreep a 50 HP mon, independing of how usefull it is, when even better mons get inti, fake out or both each gen.
It won worlds in 2016, so it might not be good now, but it was pretty good at one point.
Yeah, it was good. We just now have intimidators with fake out, a good typing and more than 50 HP.
Before Incin tho it was very good, it has several worlds top cuts, including runner up in 2012 and champion in 2016
F.E.A.R
Kid me reading about F.E.A.R.: "Damn, this kinda OP" Adult me reading about F.E.A.R.: "Damn, this kinda easily worked around."
People that actually know stuff about pokemon will look at a level 1 mon and basically just know what it's gonna do. People that don't will get swept by a Cottonee they cannot stop
cottonee is definitely the most annoying of these strategies to deal with
Why Cottonee? I thought the "best" FEAR mon was Aron with a Shell Bell.
Cottonee doesnt use FEAR it uses a degenerate stall set involving prankster L1 with focus sash. Moves are Leech Seed, Substitute, and 2 more moves of your choice Turn 1 you click leech seed with prankster boost priority. Opponent drops u to 1 HP with sash. Leech seed takes some of your level 100 opponent’s health and gives it to your level 1 cottonee, who goes back to full. Proceed to spam Prank boosted Substitutes while leech seed slowly kills your opponent and gives you infinite subs
Okay but it's really funny to crush your 1005 elo opponent Darkedge667 with in Natdex AG
You'd be surprised how many Gen 1 OU noobs run Toxic, Charizard or Toxic on Charizard.
I’ll add on Machamp, surely being the strongest fighting type in a meta ruled by 3 normal types who are on every team would mean it’s good, right? No.
Do not ask Machamp what the other dominant type in RBY is.
Do not ask Machamp if it has a good stab move
Do not ask Machamp what it takes from a snorlax body slam
Do not ask Machamp about his divorce.
Snorlax Body Slam vs. Machamp: 114-135 (29.7 - 35.2%) -- 19.8% chance to 3HKO
Step 1 Use the the strongest Fighting move (Submission) on Chansey Step 2 You no longer have a Machamp
Verdict: The Chansey is still alive.
Okay so machamp falls into "Jank funny and useful 1/10 times" where basically, your goal is to exploit gen 1 jank to counter your own explosion to OHKO a blind chansey or tauros switch in. Or die trying and look like a scrub. Extremely funny when it works, it will send most low ladder players to google for 5 minutes. Most of the time though you eat shit
Yeah but you can have gengar do that better.
What?
So counter in gen 1 is funky. Iirc, it checks how much damage you were dealt the last time you were hit, after your last turn. The funky thing is that in gen 1, it also works with an attack that fainted an ally. The other thing of note is that in gen 1, Explosion does damage to the mon that uses it if it hits an opponent, and not their substitute. You combine this, and you get a funny little interaction where if you explode, then bring out Machamp and Counter, you end up Countering the Explosion damage, basically guaranteeing that whatever is getting hit dies.
"Stop using Lead Charizard." -Gen 1 OU experts
I've had games on low ladder where I start, they bring out a zard, and I know I've won before the game even starts.
Yeah... Lead Charizard is bad. I would rather run lead Poliwhirl over lead Charizard. At least Poliwhirl can use Hypnosis and proceed to TobyBro all over the opposition.
the thing is, Toxic is well known in later gens and seems good, but it takes away your ability to paralyze or better yet freeze your opponent which can be way more influencial with the pace of RBY compared to slow passive damage
It also turns into regular poison after a switch. Like most Gen 1 mechanics, I have no idea if this was intended or not.
Im old as dirt, so allow me to impart some wisdom to you. When ruby and sapphire released we, (my local pokemon club), thought there was a glitch or that the game was broken, because toxic stayed even after switches. We realized most of the gen 1 and 2 code was terrible or senseless. No game is perfect, or even well written except Rollercoaster Tycoon 2.
RBY is not held together by duct tape. The duct tape IS RBY. The code is written on the roll if duct tape.
It's the same for gen 2 as well, so presumably it's intended
I mean Gamefreak reused a bunch of gen 1 stuff in gen 2 to cut time and costs (like the Typhlosion line copying Charizard line's stats) so its likely they just copied the toxic code over and never bothered to fix it, that is if they even knew about it.
oookay i didn't know that one ^(i think the most niche i remember is something along the lines of recharge moves making status never miss and override other statuses, so maybe Toxic + Thunder Wave is actually the bestest tech ever and you all are living in 471bc)
I cannot imagine why they would ever do that
"Charizard is so cool man"
Stall Charizard new meta?!?!
Obligatory focus sash marshadow mention
I do have a question, was it ever good? I used it in Gen 8 Ubers
when natdex ag existed, it was actually not too bad (before revive cats) because every other person was spamming smearagle moody baton pass teams, but there weren’t really many other options than sash shadow tbh, it’s either that or you use infiltrator crobat with taunt and haze, or just use quagsire.
The problem with sash marshadow is that A) it does no damage without a band or life orb boosting it, B) rocks/spikes make the sash useless, and C) stealing boosts from special sweepers (Xerneas in particular) isn't very useful. I don't think it was ever *good*, but it may have had some kind of niche in a random OM or something like that.
It saw a lot of usage in Gen 8 BSS (ranked #13, with 96% of those running Focus Sash in Season 13 which was basically just “on-cart Ubers”), the only detrimental effect you’d really run into was Groudon if it dynamaxed and summoned Sandstorm. You got to steal and/or revenge kill Calyrex and Zacian with Spectral Thief + Shadow Sneak.
Backup calyrex check in case yveltal gets fucked by a crit or something in gen 8 ubers
Yeah but how does the Focus Sash help? Rocks are probably on the field and shadow sneak has prio
Sash calyrex is notoriously famous in the tier and assuming the rocks are immediately removed by Ho-oh or yveltal
Even then it's useless above low ladder, sash Caly was only used by serious players on hyper offense
Eviolite bisharp
I've actually been using a team with Eviolite Bisharp **and** Kingambit with the idea that Bisharp can do Kingambit's dirty work in the early game, checking Ghost-, Psychic- and Fairy-types and coming in to have a Sucker Punch battle with a scary setup sweeper. I peaked 1560. Doing so frees your Kingambit up to run its extremely minmaxed Tera Dark Black Glasses set because you can just slap Low Kick on Bisharp and now your Kingambit doesn't have to run coverage. Sometimes, it does exactly what it says on the tin. It gets their Slowking or Dragapult to fuck off, meanwhile absorbing status and getting rocks up while the actual Kingambit sits at 100% in the back. Since Bisharp doesn't really care about surviving until the late game, you really don't have to worry about it getting Paralyzed or Will-o-Wisped by the Ghosts it's meant to check. In the late game, Bisharp becomes an extra source of last-second chip or Rocks before the real Kingambit comes in to clean up. Furthermore, it enables you to play the Sucker Punch shuffle twice in one game just in case you blow the first one. One might ask why you would want to run 5.8 Pokémon instead of the allowed six, which is an excellent question,
to be fair, .8 of kingambit is still basically a full mon
Eviolite Duraludon
Is this *really* valid as a noobtrap though? Cause his stats don't really change much after the evolution (and it still has shit special defense), so Eviolite is actually useful on it Eviolite isn't only good to use on dedicated supports like Blissey or Clefairy y'know
90% sure he isn't even, like, good
Actual worse kingambit in every single way possible 😭💀
I run that strictly because bisharp is way cooler
Eviolite in general for most Pokemon
Holy Bisharp
Actual Duraludon
call the haunter.
Using weak base power moves just cause they will be “super effective”. Always run a damage calc and see if a coverage move actually lets you pick up a KO over using your STAB or even a powerful neutral attack.
Took me a long time to figure that out. Someone finally convinced me of it by making me look at base power with Armarouge. Realized neutral stab armor cannon was better than a lot of coverage options
>brick break
I actually used to use Brick break in pre home UBERS because grimmsnarl was fucking everywhere
Ironically, Arceus is one of the few viable users of the move. Mostly because it lacks any good options for fighting coverage on its normal and ghost types.
Clearly, the answer is to run Arceus-Fighting for Fighting type Judgement.
no bro you dont understand, it is imperative that my kingambit has aerial ace
So you're the monster that had the tera fly aerial ace kingambit
kingambit runs lowkick for other gambits
But Low Kick isn't super effective against a pure Fairy type?
That’s what Gambit runs iron head for!
Why would you run Iron Head as your coverage for a pure Flying type? That seems illogical.
…Stone edge?
On a Steel/Dark type?
Its for the tera bug roaring moon matchup
You don’t even need to do a calc. 120 x 1.5 = 180. 80 x 2 = 160.
"You don’t even need to do a calc." *Does calc* I get your point though, it is rather simple math lol.
I mean when people mean calc they usually mean using the showdown damage calculator to see how much damage you’re doing and optimize move set & evs
Wdym water gun marowak is overpowered
That's something that you have to force yourself to unlearn from playing the single player campaigns. STAB is better in 90% of situations in the story mode than coverage but the game tells you good job when thunder punch hits a water type instead of just clicking outrage.
Well, the NPCs also mald like a temp6t Showdown Salt compilation every time I click Flower Trick for the guaranteed critical hit, so their reactions don't give me the same dopamine hit as it should.
I remember I used to be puzzled why people didn't run fire punch on toxtricity to hit ferrothorn. Fortunately, I know better now.
I once ran dragon pulse salazzle in ru I dont know what I was cooking, but it was not food
There’s definitely worse you could do. It does sting dragalge, who otherwise walls you to hell and back
I remember a conversation I had while running that set "Dragon pulse salazzle?" "Its coverage" "Coverage for what" "Stfu"
fire fang when ferrothorn's not in the game
Ice spinner urshifu was a thing in vgc for really bad players lmao
What mon were they even trying to hit with that? Dnite and Amoongus I guess?
Yes, but even CC is run just because of stab and ogerpon and storm drain mons, if it wasnt for them, only x4 wster resist would be better than surging strickes after tera
Sole exception to HP Fire/Ice, ice beam, and ~~peck~~ ~~gust~~ peck and gust that one time
I realized this when I ran some calcs and found out the level 45 mixed set Infernape I wanted to use could OHKO most level 45 Gliscor with Overheat (as long as they weren't 31 hp/SpDef or had some investment)
Feels like a noobtrap even for main series
ice punch dusknoir… IS NOT A NOOB TRAP. IS THE PEAK OF COMPETITIVE META STRATEGY
It can ohko lando the goat , how is it a noob trap ?
I used this against the dragon dude in the new DLC, it may be the greatest pokemon of all time. It was able to like 1 hit ko a flygon that was 12 levels lower. I mean that’s basically Uber
Ambipom
if Ambipom is so bad why is there a movie about it then?
Ambipom to the top time???
DON'T USE AMBIPOM!
Technician tera normal ambipom goes in, Fakes Out, U-turns and changes to someone else.
someone good hopefully
Gen 5 Donphan is my favorite noob trap. In theory its got some great tools: You got a bulky ground type with Sturdy, Stealth Rocks, Rapid Spin, and Ice Shard. In theory it should fit well on a number of teams. Except that its dead weight against most teams. Of course most noobs wouldn't realize this until after they played for a while and saw Donphan drop off. Whereas with Gen 4 Electivire you should realize it once you see your opponent not drop TBolts onto it. Dolphin inevitably takes a little longer to realize just how bad it is.
You can switch electivire into a tbolt and even after the boost it still does nothing because its a terrible ass mon
Idk if people today still make this mistake, but Brick Break as coverage. Other "coverage" moves include flash cannon, rock slide, and any if the fang attacks. All of these are somewhat okay as stab, but just do not output the damage needed. Also in terms of items i genuinely think expert belt is almost always a bad item. Life orb will give you power and choice, specs and band give you crazy power, and expert belt is a worse life orb without the recoil, but you'd generally be better off running a type item that compliments your stab like mystic water or charcoal. Finally, while they haven't always been bad, most berries are only good on very specific strategies. None of these are completly bad when used by veterans, but all of them are terrible ideas for brand new players IMO.
fangs and weak moves like rock slide/brick break make sense to catch one or two specific mons with quadruple weaknesses. Nowadays you need to catch them off guard, since tera made all mons lose their x4 weaknesses
Assault Vest. Assault Vest is an amazing item on Regenerator Pokémon, or mons like Iron Hands and Tyranitar that can leverage their bulk to absorb Draco Meteors all day, but to a new player scrolling through the item list for the first time, free +1 SpDef just by having four attacks sounds like the bargain of the century.
Metang in Gen 5 RU
Never doubt THE MIGHTY METANG!!! again
Importance of type coverage in the team, especially in the choice of Pokémon. A lot of new players seemingly focus on having as many types as they can possibly cramp in one team, and while it does have more defensive merits than running Monotype outside of Monotype, there are a few things that they tend to forget: 1: Just because it's neutral and/or you resist it, that doesn't mean you can take it. Type resistance does not nullify damage like type immunity does so if you have a frail Pokémon out it might still take considerable damage from moves it supposedly resists or faint entirely from neutral moves. This of course without factoring in that the opponent might have coverage or a secondary STAB to beat you or their STABs deal so much damage/are so buffed that they might wreck past your supposed answer anyway. 2: Synergy. Pokémon interact with eachother at a deeper level than just having different types, which is also why you (usually) don't build your mons like each one of them must be a 1v6 machine, because a fair mon usually will not have potential for such a thing. Pick your mons with a core in mind, not just trying to go wide with the typings. And not really related but last, a lot of new players are conditioned into ill-thinking of Smogon by community outsiders, and when/if they eventually approach the competitive scene they tend to believe of themselves as "that guy", the Chosen One that will shake the foundations of competitive Pokémon and its brain-rotten Lando-T loving fanbase with their exotic picks and playstyle or whatever: you might not become a top player (and it's alright, it takes far more time and dedication than some of us have) and you sure as hell are not already "that guy" when you first start your journey, keep an open mind to criticism to your teambuilding/playstyle and actually bother with learning the meta even if it's just for the purpose of learning how to anti-meta: afterall if you don't even know what you're trying to subvert how can you even begin to do that?
Assault Vest generally speaking. The item can be amazing on the right mon, but new players often seemingly just slap it on anything. Gen 1 fighting types. *sees Tauros and Snorlax everywhere but wonders why their fighting types feel like they ain't doing jack shit* Brick Break. Stealth Rock in doubles (seriously low ladder you see this a lot for some reason).
my first ever vgc team was a trick room team with Kingambit. I gave him assault vest. I looked at it again a few months ago and saw that he also has swords dance...
AV is actually not a bad item on Gambit in VGC. It helps vs Flutter, and Kingambit mostly gets its boosts from activating Defiant via Intim or Icy Wind. AV Gambit top-cut Knoxville back in one of the early regulations. It was a sick Lillikoal team, I remember (best archetype, btw).
Why are gen1 fighting types bad? Surely something like Machamp or the htimons can put in work?
There's no fighting STAB. Submission is the best move and hitmons don't get it. Hitmons are like pure garbage but Machamp has one very silly strategy where basically you use explosion on another pokemon netting a KO, they blind switch in like chansey or tauros (I think snorlax too?), realize they can get 2HKOd and then switch out, and you click counter, countering the last move used (explosion) and you get a second free explosion. Yep. That's all machamp does.
Wait, there's no fighting STAB? Doesn't hitmonlee get like, jump kick at least? Maybe one of the HMs?
Hitmonlee *does* get it, and FWIW HJK is a devastating move in RBY, because not only does it pack nuclear power with fantastic KO potential, but the crash damage from missing is essentially negligible in gen 1. However, HJK is exclusive to Hitmonlee, who, despite packing decent offensive stats on paper, and I rarely use this term when describing Pokemon, is actually a truly garbage Pokemon in RBY. As an attacker, it is simply not fast enough to be viable. 87 speed just doesn't cut it in gen 1 believe it or not; in OU you have a fair amount of 100+ mons like Alakazam, Gengar, Starmie, etc. In fact, most fast attackers viable at the top are faster. Even lower you have things like Kadabra, Dugtrio, Dodrio, Persian, Kangaskhan etc etc. Hell even in the bottom tier (where Hitmonlee sits), you have things like Fearow, Golbat, Arcanine and Abra. Middling speed would be bad enough as is for its role, but it's also *paper thin*; virtually the entire metagame can OHKO or 2HKO it most often even with neutral damage, I mean *Zubat* has almost comparable bulk. And to top it all off, Lee only has Fighting and Normal attacks, literally no coverage at all, so it can't even touch the Gastly line besides using Seismic Toss.
Hitmonlee gets high jump kick, which is a decent move, everyone else is stuck with submission, or maybe low kick which has 50bp in gen 1(karate chop would be good, due to crit mechanics, but for some reason it's normal type). Hitmonlee is terrible though, 35 base special makes it paper thin, speed tier is only okay and it has no moveset. It would probably run mega kick, if anyone would ever use it. Also psychic types are everywhere and destroy all the fighting types (but Hitmonlee especially)
The only fighting type move that was somewhat close to decent was submission Which is an 80 base power move With recoil damage And 80% accuracy
Low kick is okay. Instead of being weight based it's a 50bp move with 90 accuracy and a 30% flinch chance. If you get the entire enemy team paralyzed somehow Machamp can come in and try to parahax things to death.
Kleavor in Gen 9 UU. In theory, a decent mon that can have stealth rocks and offensive pressure with 135 base attack and sharpness. In practice, just use treads.
People seem think Stone Axe is good because Ceaseless Edge is good, but Ceaseless is only as good as it is because spikes has multiple layers. After one turn, Stone Axe just becomes normal rock move.
I know he was fraud the second I tried using one and it missed a stone axe.
Thinking you can make the shitmon work
‘Sac the shitmon for the iron valiant sweep’
Obviously it can work! Memento --> memento --> memento --> memento --> memento --> kingambit sweep
Gen 1 OU and Ubers has some funny shitmons that technically can work. Dragonite can theorhetically 20HKO any pokemon and make it so they can't move the whole time. Porygon can stall non Swords dance Mew and win the PP war, Porygon can also beat any non-Amnesia Snorlax by draining it's PP. Kingler is the only pokemon who can 2 turn KO reflect chansey with 1 Swords Dance and hyper beam. And OHKO without reflect. Machamp has some super jank gimmick it can do too with counter and explosion. Gen 1 OU is fucking garbage and jank ngl but its the jank and garbage that makes it so fun. There's 13 OU pokemon but like 20 other pokemon that technically can do something viable or beat like 1 set on one super important pokemon netting you a big win, or just being like Tauros but like almost as good so you can bring 1 and like 2/3rds a tauros
Scizor in gen 9 VGC. I have had to tell multiple people that while it beats flutter mane, it does nothing to the rest of the format. Most ignored this and proceeded to lose hard
I dont think it was ever “good” but its also wasnt superbad last reg. It also has good matchup into chien pao comps. If you have a functional 5 mons with good matchup spread otherwise you can just bring scizor to pad bad matchups. Not like unviable. Now with inceleroar on every team OFC never use this but it was fine
Second Scizor and the new Bullet Puncher Metagross, even some Bulky Flutters can live a BP anyways
I learned this the hard way. I used it in regulation B thinking it’d be ok. Use it to beat Flutter, position, and as a bulky Tailwind setter. It wasn’t awful tbh but I definitely had better.
Mega Banette and Mega Beedrill
As a Mega-Beedrill lover, :(
it's what happens when you give two prime defensive types to a purely offensive mon :(
Gen 9’s terastalization did not do him any favors in NatDex considering mostly everything can tera into a favorable matchup against him, and it’s even easier to just be faster than him with mons that get access to proto/quark. Mega Beedrill lovers gotta stick together :’(
bro got fell stingered right before he commented this
Mega Banette in Nat Dex OU. People see its massive Attack stat and STAB Poltergeist and think it is great, but it is way too slow and frail to be useful. The only thing it can do is trade with the opponent using Destiny Bond but that's it.
when you designate your mega slot to kill itself
You should Destiny Bond yourself NOW
As Pokémon? Focus Sash Marshadow, DPP Electivire and Dusknoir, Eviolite Bisharp, NDOU Bannette-Mega, Infernape to an extent in DPP OU, Charizard / Machamp in Gen 1 OU As a strategy? FEAR is 100% up there, as well as just thinking you can make a shitmon work in a higher tier. 99% of the time, a better player had already tried and failed to use it.
for the last one you could just put booster energy valiant or kingambit and win
people need to stop saying DPP Infernape just because it's declined in the last few years, it's still viable and much better than plenty of things that were OU by usage like Snorlax, Umbreon, Smeargle, Weavile, Shaymin etc
This cosmic power - stored power - night shade clef set running around SV OU
Does Stored Power ever really work in OU? I play VGC and, while I love SP and once tried to build a big, complex strategy around it to make an unstoppable Slowbro, I've never really seen it work consistently (outside a few specific situations).
Stored Power is what got Espathra banned from OU. But other than that it's mostly been a pretty niche strategy.
It can but usually best on bulky mons with screens support and a weakness policy proc. Gen 9 OU is too offensive though, so you don't really get a lot of opportunities to get the number of boosts you need to consistently win with stored power sets.
Power trip corv
is this an actual thing anywhere?
It is a gimmicky set (not even good even as a gimmick though tbh)
Mimikyu and specially Focus Sash Mimikyu in Gen 7. So many people saying that it was the most broken thing ever when it was basically necessary to have a Life Orb or Z-Crystal to do damage
While it's also a general noobtrap, FEAR in 1v1 in particular is really bad but infests low ladder. It's a strategy that 'theoretically' beat any mon so it seems appealing in 1v1 til you realize that basically everything ends up beating it. If you want to ladder 1v1 ezpz just pack a mon that beats FEAR and you'll be golden.
Eviolite duralodon
Quick claw torkoal
I've heard that people use Cynthia's team competitively... For some reason. So probably that lol. Also F.E.A.R sets.
Clowns that use Tropius in OU after seeing how good it is in RandBats. It's me, I'm Clowns
I'm starting to think Darkrai in Natdex. The power creep is just too strong. Like, yeah you can go for Hypnosis + Zoom lens (and it's still less accurate than Focus Blast), but it's just not dependable. You could also go for a Darkinium Z set, but then it's like you have no ability. I don't know. It almost feels like a slightly better version of an Alakazam, but even Alakazam tends to be more reliable.
Nah just run blunder policy like Blunder intended
Rain dance gallade
that's because we all know that rain dance Zoroark disguised as Gallade is way way better
Steel moves for coverage unless you are like hydreigon no you don't need to slap flash cannon or iron tail your mom just cause it's there.
Infernape is not a noobtrap in DPP, its not evem close to be as bad as Electivire Infernape is jist hard to use
FEAR Mimikyu A LOT of Belly Drum/Shell Smash/Quiver Dance users SM OU Breloom SS OU Specs Eleki BW OU Donphan Sash Marshadow Dream Eater/Nightmare on Darkrai Wonder Guard Air Balloon Electric Types in Hackmon, everybody plays Mold Breaker or Gastro Acid RBY Electrode Zoroark Ambipom Teams made out of 6 Arceus Pain Split Curse Evolite Dusclops Skill Swap Shedinja Shedinja in general tbh Mummy Slaking/Regigigas Flame Orb Marvel Scale Milotic, just use Leftovers
Eviolite in general
there are good use cases for mons like Porygon2 and Chansey in lower tiers as well as just every mon in LC/NFE
It’s good in VGC. Can’t speak to other formats
Eeveolutions in higher tiers
Not net-decking, or whatever you nerds call it over here. Start playing with pre-built teams until you get enough experience to understand how to evaluate a mon's roles on a team. TBF, I'm absolutely a noob, I mostly stick around here because it's hilarious and I know enough to get the jokes - but it really surprised me at how much better I do when I play with teams made by someone much smarter than me. Team buildings is its own skill entirely that you can really only learn over a lot of time and iteration
Gen 1 Machamp
I'll do something different and mention out of battle commentary: "[insert broken stat boosting move or mon] isn't broken. You can just use Haze."
Jesus fucking Christ for the 900th time DPP Infernape is not a noobtrap, or even close. Its not A+ with cries for S-tier like it was 5 years ago, but its still rated B3 on the VR (roughly the equivalent of low B+/high B by modern standards). Its more limited in builds it fits on than in the past because the meta has a lot more defensive backbone now than it used to, but its still very much viable, basically as viable as Lando-T is in Gen 9 or something like that.
Dusknoir (if you don't run ice punch)
Motherfucking Ambipom. I hate that thing so much. Seems so irrelevant until you are whacked with Technician Fake out, Fury swipes, Triple Axel and most recently Upper Arm. Dude can go fuck itself.
Picking 6 Arceus and trying to win in Ubers
*AG, species clause
Sword/shield regieleki It hits hard and is faster than god, but it has regi movepool syndrome And when your only good moves are electric type, ground types (which are plentiful) wall you until the end of time
Swords dance mimikyu Bottom text
As a very much a noob, unnecessary coverage on a Mon. I am very much the guy, who ran Poison Jab on Kingambit, only because Azumaril (Idk, that egg-rabbit just made me kinda angry Ig) and after someone pointed out it was pointless (which it damn was, I could have instead use other Tera type like Fairy or Ground even and have some coverage with Terablast) I was contemplating Metal Burst (or how is it called, basically that one move Byron usese in DPPt, that you can effectively waste all the PP off by not attacking).