Singles 3v3 General Discussion

It's less common now than in generation 6 because of the Parental Bond nerf, but yeah people still use it. 30% chance to paralyse (no it doesn't roll twice like Rock Slide / other moves do thank god) is pretty nice, and it also avoids physical contact so random Rocky Helmet users don't get free chip damage.
Wow. So lost a battle to a 30 percent proc. Oh well, thats why you can't take this game too seriously...still, hard not to get mad.
 
Thought I'd share a set that I've enjoyed using for quite a while, and proves to be mildly effective some of the time:
Introducing: setup sweeper Blissey!

Blissey @ Kee Berry
Ability: Serene Grace
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Charge Beam
- Ice Beam
- Soft-Boiled
- Charm

It's mostly a meme, but it can work really good in certain matchups, mainly when the opponent is lacking physical fighting moves because with the super great bulk along with charm to punish switches and weaken physical attackers that don't have fighting coverage, which is especially potent alongside Kee berry for superb bulk. This allows relatively easy setup on a decent portion of the meta. Serene Grace is cool so charge beam is more reliable, and a 20% freeze with ice bean can really screw over your opponent.
 
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In this BS laddering tournament, I've been noticing asides from the rampant amount of lower ladder cheese, Mence Koko Aegi is very popular amongst the community, generally with hippo, gren and one more mon. This is to the point I've faced or spectated it I think from four different people with BS11 tags. It's also pretty prevalent on cartridge for obvious reasons (it's good in skilled hands lol).

Wondering how people have been dealing with this common core. It's one of the things that has leaned me towards using a lot more Mamoswine.
 
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cant say

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In this BS laddering tournament, I've been noticing asides from the rampant amount of lower ladder cheese, Mence Koko Aegi is very popular amongst the community, generally with hippo, gren and one more mon. This is to the point I've faced or spectated it I think from four different people with BS11 tags. It's also pretty prevalent on cartridge for obvious reasons (it's good in skilled hands lol).

Wondering how people have been dealing with this common core. It's one of the things that has leaned me towards using a lot more Mamoswine.
I really like Bloom Doom + HP Ice Volcarona, it can set up on Koko, Aegi, or Kartana and then just sweeps. You don't need Bloom Doom because +1 Firium / Buginium can beat Hippo as well, but the uninvested Bloom Doom can really come in handy sometimes. Special Blaziken can kinda do the same thing but unboosted HP Ice isn't beating bulky Mence. (Bulky) Flame Charge Zard Y is also okay but Hippo disrupting the sun can limit Flamethrower's damage which means that some of the bulky Koko on these teams can revenge kill Zard. Scarf Rotom-H could also work, although requires some hard predictions as locking yourself into HP Ice against Mence can give Aegislash a lot of momentum, same with Overheat with Mence in the back...
 
I've been wanting to get into Battle Spot Singles recently, but I have two problems:

1) I am not very good at teambuilding. Are there any resources I can be directed to?

2) I've had my eyes on the Refresh Mega Pidgeot set for one of my teams, but I found out it can only be obtained on Pokemon XD. I have a problem with that being my copy of Emerald has died, and there's just no way I'll be able to find a copy of a Gen 3 game at a reasonable price. Is there another way I can obtain one of these things?

Thanks!!
 
I've been wanting to get into Battle Spot Singles recently, but I have two problems:

1) I am not very good at teambuilding. Are there any resources I can be directed to?

2) I've had my eyes on the Refresh Mega Pidgeot set for one of my teams, but I found out it can only be obtained on Pokemon XD. I have a problem with that being my copy of Emerald has died, and there's just no way I'll be able to find a copy of a Gen 3 game at a reasonable price. Is there another way I can obtain one of these things?

Thanks!!
1. One place you can take to ask about teambuilding would be the teambuilding help thread, linked here. You can also do some asking on the Battle Spot room on Pokémon Showdown or the Discord channel, where people are on fairly often and usually wouldn't mind helping out.

2. Unfortunately, current Battle Spot rules require all Pokémon be bred or caught in gen 6 and 7 games only (XY, ORAS, SM, USUM), so unfortunately you can't use Refresh Mega Pidgeot since it's only available as a gen 3 transfer. On top of that, Mega Pidgeot is a very niche mega evolution, since it often doesn't have enough power to do what it wants, has a somewhat lacking movepool, and faces heavy competition for a team's mega slot from things like Mega Salamence, Mega Blaziken, Mega Charizard X and Y, and more. However, if you still want to build around it, I would say it is possible, but it'd take a lot of support to work. Feel free to ask and experiment with it though.

Hope that answered your questions, since I'm not the greatest at that kind of stuff.
 
1. One place you can take to ask about teambuilding would be the teambuilding help thread, linked here. You can also do some asking on the Battle Spot room on Pokémon Showdown or the Discord channel, where people are on fairly often and usually wouldn't mind helping out.

2. Unfortunately, current Battle Spot rules require all Pokémon be bred or caught in gen 6 and 7 games only (XY, ORAS, SM, USUM), so unfortunately you can't use Refresh Mega Pidgeot since it's only available as a gen 3 transfer. On top of that, Mega Pidgeot is a very niche mega evolution, since it often doesn't have enough power to do what it wants, has a somewhat lacking movepool, and faces heavy competition for a team's mega slot from things like Mega Salamence, Mega Blaziken, Mega Charizard X and Y, and more. However, if you still want to build around it, I would say it is possible, but it'd take a lot of support to work. Feel free to ask and experiment with it though.

Hope that answered your questions, since I'm not the greatest at that kind of stuff.
Aw, crud, seriously? Even Ranked?! Or is this Special only? As for Mega Pidgeot niche, that's why I want to use it. I enjoy making things work when there are better options. Just my playstyle.

Blehhh.. so much for using Mega Birb as my stallbreaker.. XD
 
Aw, crud, seriously? Even Ranked?! Or is this Special only? As for Mega Pidgeot niche, that's why I want to use it. I enjoy making things work when there are better options. Just my playstyle.

Blehhh.. so much for using Mega Birb as my stallbreaker.. XD
Yeah, ranked can only use mons from gen 6 and 7 games :'(. Even if it's really hard to use, Jesus Birb is honestly an interesting challenge and I wish you the best of luck on making it work!
 
Yeah, ranked can only use mons from gen 6 and 7 games :'(. Even if it's really hard to use, Jesus Birb is honestly an interesting challenge and I wish you the best of luck on making it work!
Thanks! I might enjoy using it in the lower ranks but swap to more of a powerhouse later on. Suppose I'll brainstorm some teams. Or at least try to.
 
1) I am not very good at teambuilding. Are there any resources I can be directed to?
I use a combination of the viability rankings and good cores threads from here, Smogon Dex, a top 30 usage list in the Pokemon Global Link (I basically go down the list and see which mons I need answers to), and I watch 7th Gen Battle Spot's videos on YouTube.
 

Darkinium

the mighty nuaguunibi
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Can someone tell me what's standard on Torrent Greninja since that's a new thing now? I can see that Substitute and Hydro Cannon / Pump with Waterium Z is part of the set.
 

ethan06

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Yup, pretty much every Torrent Greninja you're likely to see will be Waterium Z with Hydro Cannon, Substitute, Water Shuriken and either Dark Pulse, an additional Water move (commonly Scald) or Ice Beam. Torrent's big draw is the absolutely nuclear power boost it gives to Z-Hydro Cannon, which by itself is an impressive 200 base power - and the buck stops there, more or less. Boosted Water Shuriken is nice too, but for anything other than beefy Water hits you'll probably be best served with Protean. Not to say that Torrent is a bad set - it's in fact fantastic, but also one-dimensional. If you don't see a Protean proc then you can be fairly confident that the opponent is running the above set.
 
Hey. So a lot of people been laddering for the last 1-4 weeks for this laddering tournament. What's the dumbest thing you've lost to?

I will admit I've lost horribly to a curse, stockpile, recycle, crunch Alolan Muk. The worst thing is that this didn't happen just once, I forgot completely about it 2 days later and lost to it again. In fact Alolan Muk seems to be my current bane, with also losing to a sun rock Alolan Muk sun team with Victreebel.

Oh and another quick question, what mon when you see it on the enemy team just makes you groan?

Two come to mind, Greninja and Glalie. Greninja just cause you generally have to sack a mon just to find out what it is and Glalie cause it just turns the game into a casino.
 
Hey. So a lot of people been laddering for the last 1-4 weeks for this laddering tournament. What's the dumbest thing you've lost to?

I will admit I've lost horribly to a curse, stockpile, recycle, crunch Alolan Muk. The worst thing is that this didn't happen just once, I forgot completely about it 2 days later and lost to it again. In fact Alolan Muk seems to be my current bane, with also losing to a sun rock Alolan Muk sun team with Victreebel.

Oh and another quick question, what mon when you see it on the enemy team just makes you groan?

Two come to mind, Greninja and Glalie. Greninja just cause you generally have to sack a mon just to find out what it is and Glalie cause it just turns the game into a casino.
Not sure if I would call it dumb as its fairly clever in hindsight, but I dropped a game to a weakness policy + Rock Polish Regice behind screens.

And it's not a strong reaction, but Mega Gengar is usually not a fun mon to see in team preview given how much it can do with its coverage and utility with a base 130 speed that gives it a good chance of pulling it off.
 
While I'm here, I was thinking about Z-Hydro Cannon Greninja, and how it takes advantage of Torrent to deliver a ridiculous one-time nuke, and it got me wondering if any of the other starters could maybe pull off something similar?

As stupid as it sounds, I've had some fun messing around (and surprisingly winning) with Z-Hydro Pump Empoleon:



Empoleon @ Waterium Z
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe / 4 Def
Modest Nature
- Hydro Pump / Hydro Cannon
- Ice Beam
- Grass Knot / Substitute
- Agility

It's slower than Gren until it gets an Agility off, but Pingu is tanky (it can set up on a boosted Naga, for example) and actually hits harder. Yeah, it's gimmicky as hell, but so's Z-Hydro Cannon Greninja. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

+2 252+ SpA Naganadel Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Empoleon: 134-158 (84.2 - 99.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO - I wasn't kidding!

252 SpA Torrent Greninja Hydro Vortex (200 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 219-258 (125.1 - 147.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Torrent Empoleon Hydro Vortex (185 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 232-274 (132.5 - 156.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Torrent Empoleon Hydro Vortex (200 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 252-297 (144 - 169.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
 
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Hey, I'm planning on really going hard on BSS over the next month due to being a lot more free and motivated to improve. I however at the moment suck at teambuilding and I don't really want to use a Japanese team where they often don't give me enough information to work with or their teams are too niche. Wondering if anyone could PM me a couple of team to work with, can be any style. That'd be much appreciated.
 
I've seen this spread for Bulky Mega Mence before and I'm considering re-ev'ing my Fast Salamence into a bulkier Mence. However, could somebody explain to me what the EV distribution is meant to accomplish?

Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 212 HP / 68 Atk / 4 Def / 156 SpD / 68 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Dragon Dance
- Substitute
- Roost
 

Darkinium

the mighty nuaguunibi
I've seen this spread for Bulky Mega Mence before and I'm considering re-ev'ing my Fast Salamence into a bulkier Mence. However, could somebody explain to me what the EV distribution is meant to accomplish?

Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 212 HP / 68 Atk / 4 Def / 156 SpD / 68 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Dragon Dance
- Substitute
- Roost
Unfortunately not very knowledgeable on stuff like this, but what I can confirm is that the Speed EVs outspeed max Speed Adamant Mimikyu.
 
I've seen this spread for Bulky Mega Mence before and I'm considering re-ev'ing my Fast Salamence into a bulkier Mence. However, could somebody explain to me what the EV distribution is meant to accomplish?

Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 212 HP / 68 Atk / 4 Def / 156 SpD / 68 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Dragon Dance
- Substitute
- Roost
I have very limited Generation VII BSS experience, but this might be build to live a Modest Scarf Lele Moonblast so you can use Dragon Dance to outspeed and kill with +1 Return the following turn. Probably also helps against Modest Focus Sash Lele.
252+ SpA Tapu Lele Moonblast vs. 212 HP / 156 SpD Mega Salamence: 168-198 (85.2 - 100.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

The Attack investment kills offensive Mimikyu.
68+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mimikyu: 132-156 (100.7 - 119%) -- guaranteed OHKO

The Speed investment gives you 149 Speed which is 1 point faster than neutral Mimikyu and 2 points faster than neutral Tapu Lele.
Looks like this dragon is build to beat common fairies.
 
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I've seen this spread for Bulky Mega Mence before and I'm considering re-ev'ing my Fast Salamence into a bulkier Mence. However, could somebody explain to me what the EV distribution is meant to accomplish?

Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 212 HP / 68 Atk / 4 Def / 156 SpD / 68 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Dragon Dance
- Substitute
- Roost
Nelson got the important stuff regarding Mimikyu, which is what the primary function of Atk and Speed are there for.

Atk is also high enough for +1 Return/Frustrstion to be a 2HKO on PhysDef P2 after Stealth Rocks (unfavourable roll without).

There's also this minor use for the spdef
4 SpA Analytic Porygon2 Ice Beam vs. 212 HP / 156 SpD Mega Salamence: 86-102 (43.6 - 51.7%) -- 6.3% chance to 2HKO
This is a roosting Mence, only Dragon-type. Worth nothing that only the top 2/16 rolls do more damage than the HP recovered. So you can stall out a Toxic'd P2. If very desperate you can also attempt to stall out Ice Beam PP, which is dangerous as freeze and crits will be likely.
 
I've seen this spread for Bulky Mega Mence before and I'm considering re-ev'ing my Fast Salamence into a bulkier Mence. However, could somebody explain to me what the EV distribution is meant to accomplish?

Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 212 HP / 68 Atk / 4 Def / 156 SpD / 68 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Dragon Dance
- Substitute
- Roost
Jhon and Nelson have done a good job of pointing out the main benchmarks, but that Mence spread also allows it to survive a Choice Specs Dazzling Gleam or HP Ice from Tapu Koko from full health, which can decide some one-on-ones against another popular meta threat. Further, the extra bulk allows Mence an easier setup against some weaker super effective attacks (i.e. Cresselia Ice Beam, Intimidated Mimikyu Play Rough, etc.).
 
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