General LC discussion

[Destiny Warrior]

Bumping this, with more experiences.

Moguryuu is less beastly than I thought. Its really amusing how I just sac my lead(yes, I usually don't leave my lead in to die after it sets up what it has to, just because of Moguryuu), then bring in Scarf Snover. Offensive Hail seems to be the answer to Moguryuu, as a lot of sweepers love the additional passive damage(granted, my team stacks a lot of entry hazards, so that might be it too), and a lot of Sandstorm sweepers get screwed over by Blizzard and Energy Ball.

Some of the not-so-common Pokemon are excellent. I've been testing Onix as a lead, and its been doing very well, much better than Ishizumai, who I replaced due to Hail. Pineco is rather underwhelming, and same with Bachuru. Darumakka is still wreaking havoc, and with there being no Perversity Tsutarja yet(to my knowledge), I can drop Shikijika for a failsafe Moguryuu revenge killer.

The metagame is basically Sandstorm Vs Others now, as if you don't have a way of controlling the weather, there's a very good chance you're gonna get screwed over badly. Sandstorm teams are now as easy to build as Gen 4 UU Rain Dance teams before Hera's drop.

 

[gonfreecs]

One of the things I noticed benefits 2 of my favorite LC pokemon: dratini and totodile

If you look at Serebii’s egg move data for Totodile, you can see under aqua jet, “parents that learn aqua jet by breeding,” and see Dratini’s family there. In other words, you can breed a Dratini to have Aqua Jet, level it up to know Dragon dance, then breed it with a female Totodile. The child will know both Dragon Dance and Aqua Jet (finally, GF loves me)! So Now I’m thinking Jolly LO Totodile with DD-AJ-waterfall/aqua tail-return, which would destroy on a rain team (too bad croagunk still blocks it). I believe you can get DD-outrage-extreme speed-aqua jet Dratini too, giving you priority on an already-RPd steel or rock-type, and also deals with scarf ghastly, losing power for priority.

 

[Destiny Warrior]

Extremespeed is illegal with Aqua Jet IIRC, as E-Speed is 4th Gen breeding move, while Aqua Jet is 5th Gen breeding move.

 

[Soda]

I've never played a LC match I just kinda sorta follow it but here's something I immediately noticed: Analyze Porygon.

I don't really know how to judge LC stats but Porygon seems to be moderately bulky and has a great Spec. Atk state and coverage. An Analyze Specs Set seems like it would work very well.

Get Porygon its lowest speed possible, put some Specs on it, invest in bulk and max out spec. atk and with its coverage it seems like it could be a pretty good pokemon.

I don't know how much Analyze boosts it's power though.

 

[breh]

Extremespeed is illegal with Aqua Jet IIRC, as E-Speed is 4th Gen breeding move, while Aqua Jet is 5th Gen breeding move.

I believe he's talking about Totodile, if I understand correctly.

I've never played a LC match I just kinda sorta follow it but here's something I immediately noticed: Analyze Porygon.

I don't really know how to judge LC stats but Porygon seems to be moderately bulky and has a great Spec. Atk state and coverage. An Analyze Specs Set seems like it would work very well.

Get Porygon its lowest speed possible, put some Specs on it, invest in bulk and max out spec. atk and with its coverage it seems like it could be a pretty good pokemon.

I don't know how much Analyze boosts it's power though.

Wouldn't it be better to run TR?

In any case, although I also do not know analyze boost power, it has problems in that it's not a 3rd gen ability, meaning no pomeg glitch and thus no tri attack.

 

[leingodf8]

One poke I'm looking forward to trying out is a shell break shellder. Might be a little hard to pull off if crogunk is waiting in the wings but it seems like itd be an effective late game sweeper. Also once and if dream world abilities get allowed, koromi with simple will be quite a threat. 73 Speeds quite a lot, should be able to put a calm mind set to good use. Finally, natu has piqued my intrest. He is the only pokemon in LC that can abuse Magic Mirror, so it could probably function as an effective lead, or just be used to not only block, but reflect status. His movepool is very diverse so I've got high hopes for the little guy.

 

[Epichammerbro]

I'm suprised that no one has meantioned Zorua much. With moves such as Nast Plot, Swords Dance, Agility, Taunt, Counter, U-Turn, Night Burst, Extrasensory, Trickery, and Pursuit it can truely wreak havoc in LC. I can see a NP set working well to ruin stall:

Zorua @ Life Orb
Nature: Timid/Modest
Ability: Illusion
EVs: 4Hp/252SpA/252Spe
-Nasty Plot
-Night Burst/Dark Pulse
-HP Ice
-Taunt/Extrasensory/Substitute

 

[DDRMaster]

I haven't seen anyone mention this yet but any Pokemon that runs absolute minimum HP with less than 70 Base HP will end up with no more than 21 HP at Lv. 5. This means that a Pokemon with Sturdy can take any attack, do whatever it wants, heal back to full health thanks to Berry Juice, and take any other attack thanks to Sturdy again. This is similar to a Sturdy+Custap Strategy but brings you end up back at full health and aren't as succeptible to priority. It also allows you to use Metal Burst twice if you want to use that strategy.

LC legal Pokemon with that get Sturdy and have low enough Base HP:

Geodude (40)
Magnemite (25)
Onix (35)
Pineco (50)
Nosepass (30)
Aron (50)
Shieldon (30)
Bonsly (50)
Dangoro (55)
Ishizumai (50)
Purotooga (54)

Among these, I think Ishizumai and Purotooga would be the best users of these since they have Shell Break. Here's a Purotooga set with it:

Purotooga @ Berry Juice
EVs: 212 Atk/92 Def/24 SpAtk/180 Spe (You can swap the Def and SpAtk if you're running Ice Beam.)
Nature: Jolly/Adamant or Naive/Naughty
Ability: Sturdy

~ Shell Break
~ Aqua Jet
~ Earthquake
~ Stone Edge/Ice Beam

If you can prevent Entry Hazards and Hail from being up, you can get two activations of Sturdy thanks to Berry Juice. This allows you to either get two Shell Breaks up (giving you 51 Atk, 39 SpAtk, and 36 Spe with Naive) or simply get one Shell Break up and save the second activation of Sturdy for taking priority. If you can get your opponent to switch out as you use Shell Break, you can get up a second one and still end up back at full HP.

The EVs give you the maximum amount of Atk and Spe possible without wasting any and the rest are put into Def and SpAtk. With no investment in HP, you reach exactly 21, which is the highest you can have and still abuse Berry Juice like this.

 

[Destiny Warrior]

Croagunk causes big problems to Purotooga. Fake Out + Vacuum Wave causes big problems.

 

[Heysup]

I don't get why people are considering Ice Beam....Tangela?

 

[Destiny Warrior]

Yeah, its likely Tangela. Though it hits Gligar too, but I think Waterfall smacks it harder (240 on STAB Waterfall Vs 190 on unSTABed IB, though Gligar has better Def).

 

[DDRMaster]

Yeah, its likely Tangela. Though it hits Gligar too, but I think Waterfall smacks it harder (240 on STAB Waterfall Vs 190 on unSTABed IB, though Gligar has better Def).

Gligar is 4x weak to Ice Beam, so it would hit it much harder than Waterfall (380 compared to 240).

 

[Plusle]

magic mirror natu is cool

 

[Tomahawk]

Yeah, I'm agreeing with you on this: Trick Room will become more viable thanks to so many slow, strong mons. With Pokemon which have immense Offensive stats and Defensive ones, the speedy battles in LC you would find today are going to become scarce in a short amount of time. This is just my assumption and prediction, though.

I'm not a LC expert, but with the Trick Room lasting only 3 turns now (or so i heard), I don't think it will dominate.

 

[Destiny Warrior]

Tr doesn't last 3 turns, the reason people say that is that they assume you use TR and then switch out, meaning you have 3 turns to use for sweeping.

 

[Heysup]

Trick Room has always been one of those teams that look great on paper....but in practice they really don't work that well. LC teams will either have too much priority or too many defensive mon that survive + OHKO back. Not to mention, thanks to the Evolution Stone, almost any Pokemon can take an attack from any mon.

 

[Lou Cypher]

So now that Vulpix has been unleashed, any idea on how this is going to work with the LC Meta? Tangela in particular seems...pretty evil, just at first glance.

 

[Darkamber8828]

So now that Vulpix has been unleashed, any idea on how this is going to work with the LC Meta? Tangela in particular seems...pretty evil, just at first glance.

It's banned.

 

[Lou Cypher]

Well either way there still should be plenty of strong sun abusers in LC, I'd recon.

 

[Nails]

There are. It's the weakest weather effect because all of the fire sweepers are weak to SR and Munchy resists fire and ohkoes back with EQ, while all the grass sweepers ned to use solarbeam to get enough power and then run into snover issues. I'm not saying it's weak, it's just not exactly great.

 

[Banryu]

Extremespeed is illegal with Aqua Jet IIRC, as E-Speed is 4th Gen breeding move, while Aqua Jet is 5th Gen breeding move.

I'm pretty sure ExSpeed is still breedable on Dratnini in the 5th gen. :0

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Technically yes, but nothing learns both. Specifically, only Dratini/Dragonair/Dragonite itself learns Extremespeed in its breeding pool.

 

[TrueLuck]

Been using drought vulpix with sunny day team, wayyyyy to broken

 

[Banryu]

Been using drought vulpix with sunny day team, wayyyyy to broken

show me the way to broken

 

[KratosAurion]

After Laddering for a while, I haven't really seen much coming from Sun Teams, nor Sandstorm, neither Rain. Evolution Stone Zuruggu, Meditite, and Komatama seem to be taking control of the Metagame if they haven't already. Weather Teams haven't exactly received too much attention this Gen with so many good Pokemon and Evolution Stone around, both of which make life harder for Weather Teams.