Format Discussion Pokemon Sword & Shield Random Doubles Battle Sets

[breh]

iron head darmanitan is bloat; this is almost always bad, especially compared to superpower or almost any other move

arctozolt without blizzard high key sucks; it's slow and without any way to make it faster / the opposing team slower it has a lot of weaknesses to strong moves and tends to just... die.

primarina wants hyper voice because yelling strong. eball and psychic are probably bloat

assurance on some dark types could be cool, especially on slower ones. tyranitar is one, but would need to be restricted with dragon dance and vice versa. bisharp is another (restrict with knock off and vice versa)

reiterating that SD on qwilfish sucks when it is rocking dual low BP moves and has to give up slots that could be twave. it does not have swift swim and you're not going to sweep with it so why try

energy ball and recover are bloat on reuniclus that reduce your chance of getting trick room and/or protect. it needs about 5 moves - psychic, trick room, focus blast, protect, and shadow ball. not getting either makes reuniclus slow (and, in turn) feel frail because there's nothing to stop it from getting double targeted and just dying

if togekiss does not spawn with air slash, it should get super luck. I don't know how often this happens / whether or not there are checks in place to ensure this occurs

why did quash sableye never get added

zygarde is consistently painfully bad. until it gets its signature moves, almost always, the best utility it will offer is glare. it does 0 damage off of its level balance hell already low attack stat and sits there providing 0 value without it. eq can probably be replaced by land's wrath (or at least have the choice between one or the other, while mutual rejecting them) and coil / iron tail / stone edge all reduce the chance you get glare.

 

[platinumCheesecake]

cutting darm iron head and recover clus

adding quash sableye
swapping sd qwilfish for tspikes

 

[JonahRamone]

I just got a Terrakion with Rock Slide/Stone Edge/Substitute/Swords Dance. That... shouldn't be able to happen, right? Single handedly cost me the game.

 

[breh]

hex drifblim is that twave protect fake out last resort ambipom in the battle frontier in gen 4 made as a ploy to disadvantage you in the battle factory when battling against brainless ai

solgaleo has a lot of potential for things it can do.

like every legendary pokemon and especially like box legendaries, level balance makes it significantly worse than it appears. its whole stat spread at l70 is actually pretty similar to a l85 Glalie, albeit with ~15% more physical bulk and about 5% more attack. it isn't a threatening pokemon and if you're used to it, you will know not to target it, especially if you have anything that all of its attacks hit neutral, as it tends to sit there and dish out lukewarm single target damage.

unlike some box legends cursed with singles-heavy movepools, solgaleo has a lot of nice support moves. it has access to helping hand, thunder wave, rock tomb, and wide guard, as well as some other stuff like screens and tr. stone edge and morning sun clog its movepool - it's not strong enough to use stone edge (it will take more from fire types using STAB moves than it will do to them, especially bulkier ones) and often ends up feeling too anemic to make good use of morning sun - it's not necessarily drawing a lot of fire so it doesn't necessarily need to actually regain its health. close combat / sunsteel strike actually have pretty good coverage just between the two of them, so flare blitz is also not the most valuable, but it does at least have good accuracy and higher base power over stone edge.

why does hooh have earth power? low bp move that runs off hooh's level balance hell lower stat, bb / flare blitz is perfectly fine, and can potentially remove slots for valuable moves like tailwind and protect, the former being especially crucial in making sure hooh does something more than use its two STAB moves

celebi can get helping hand; like a lot of other level balance hell mons, it is better in a support role than trying to KO things with low BP STAB moves and low BP coverage moves. thunder wave, pollen puff, and ally switch are other support options as well

idk how to feel about sr or guard split on shuckle as both make the chance you get helping hand lower. guard split will functionally always move last and you have to make sure that whatever ally you use it on doesn't get most of its health removed by other pokemon that aren't intent on targeting shuckle. sr isn't necessarily bad but shuckle's support movepool is sufficiently ok that it doesn't feel valuable in comparison

ally switch on indeedee is I think straight worse than follow me period.

 

[breh]

swagger klefki is kind of shit. sand attack that wears off after a few turns; yes it boosts your fp but it can provide a lot of other support that isn't memey

ice shard vanilluxe is a poverty move I used in vgc11 to hit genies and that's pretty much it. 3 gens later, it prevents me from getting aurora veil or protect

hyper voice on exploud is a move for cowards.

throat spray could be a cool item to give certain pokemon with STAB bug buzz / hyper voice. probably more valuable for accelgor than the sitrus that doesn't tend to do much

got an arai with psychic / psyshock / gk / rising voltage; I don't know how it's been this long and these two moves aren't mutual rejected with one another...

clear smog doesn't reject LO which can lead to sludge bomb / clear smog / fire blast / pain split LO weezing

own tempo on lickilicky is inferior to oblivious and you can make a case for cloud nine being valuable with max move swift swimmers etc. and aurora veil.

cloyster can have shitty 4 attacks sets. would be nice to have a reject condition for ice shard (which is probably the least necessary move in its set) it if the pokemon has shell smash in its movepool and does not have shell smash. honestly can probably live without having protect

necrozma dawn wings is in level balance hell and doesn't feel very strong or very useful. when it lacks heat wave it is significantly worse. would be way cooler if it could support with twave / ally switch, earth power and mb kind of *exist* when you have dual 100 BP STABs that tend to be good enough anyway

milotic should always get competitive

stoutland gets no STAB sets. mostly noting because I'm not sure whether or not that's intended to occur (idk the interaction of facade + no guts / quick feet in abilitypool; will it ever actually get facade?) and not because I think it's bad. maybe can enjoy yawn? its support capabilities are actually pretty solid as is but it may be worth as yawn is just a great move (would need reject conditions with twave, probably). why did gf deny this body slam

 

[Pirate Princess]

Just had a Klutz/Iron Ball Lopunny without Switcheroo. Cute Charm or Limber would be far more beneficial than hoping ur opponent tricks.

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

Just had a Klutz/Iron Ball Lopunny without Switcheroo. Cute Charm or Limber would be far more beneficial than hoping ur opponent tricks.

This was intentional, but I guess I'll remove uturn so it's guaranteed one of entrainment or switcheroo

 

[JonahRamone]

The worst mon currently in randdubs is Stoutland. It's completely fluff. Can we not include Psychic Fangs or Play Rough so that it can threaten a few more mons? I played a tour earlier today where I had one on my team and it almost caused me to lose and in the very next battle my opponent had one and caused me to win because it was hitting Sableye for 25ish% damage with Crunch.

I get that Crunch is required since it's running Intimidate not Scrappy, but not having a powerful normal type move is so limiting, it needs a few more cards up its sleeve.

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

The worst mon currently in randdubs is Stoutland. It's completely fluff. Can we not include Psychic Fangs or Play Rough so that it can threaten a few more mons? I played a tour earlier today where I had one on my team and it almost caused me to lose and in the very next battle my opponent had one and caused me to win because it was hitting Sableye for 25ish% damage with Crunch.

I get that Crunch is required since it's running Intimidate not Scrappy, but not having a powerful normal type move is so limiting, it needs a few more cards up its sleeve.

Doubles moves for Stoutland in [Gen 8] Random Doubles Battle:
Crunch, Facade, Helping Hand, Protect, Superpower, Thunder Wave

This is all it really has. Not much else going for it. Really bad mon.

Anyways: This has been live for a few weeks, but I wanted to make a formal post on this here, anyway. The Random Doubles level system has been completely revamped. Levels are now based on Doubles tiering (DUbers, DOU, DUU, (DUU)), with some exceptions and room for subjectivity throughout. Lemme break it down:

Doubles Ubers: Level 72 for most of them, and Level 76 for Pokemon that aren't uberbroken/really don't need that heavy of a level nerf (currently Solgaleo, Melmetal, Jirachi).

Doubles OU: Level 80. Pokemon that generally require or provide specific team support, like Kingdra, Alolan Marowak, and Galarian Weezing, are level 82 or 84 instead.

Doubles UU: Level 84. Pokemon that are way better in a randomized, Dynamax metagame, like Gengar, are made level 80 or 82 instead. Pokemon that are newly introduced in Isle of Armor and probably suck despite being technically in Doubles UU are given DNU leveling.

Doubles NU (or (DUU)): Levels 86-90. This is subjective and based on what would be best for balance. Baseline is 88, 86 is for "good DNU" and 90 is for "bad DNU". Pokemon that are really, really good with Dynamax are made level 84 or lower instead. Pokemon that suck really, really a lot like Farfetch'd and Delibird are level 95.

This new system's still a work in progress, and is not without its too-strong or too-weak Pokemon. Please post here or otherwise let me know if you find anything overbearing or underpowered at its current level. Keep up the good feedback, folks!

 

[JonahRamone]

Doubles moves for Stoutland in [Gen 8] Random Doubles Battle:
Crunch, Facade, Helping Hand, Protect, Superpower, Thunder Wave

This is all it really has. Not much else going for it. Really bad mon.

No disagreement here. I'm just advocating to give it Psychic Fangs to let it hit a few more mons & remove screens.

 

[JonahRamone]

Ferrothorn's movepool is kinda bloated. Just got T Wave / Knock Off / Power Whip / Gyro Ball. Atrociously bad, its 197 attack is not good enough to carry this.

 

[fitzy72]

The two Urshifus seem to not get given their signature moves when they should probably be mandatory.

 

[FireBlastingNinetales]

Got a Milotic with Coil and no physical attacking moves...explain please. I get the Def boost may be useful, but really?

Edit: TWICE IN A ROW NOW

Edit 2: Alright I get that it actually needs accuracy for Hypnosis, thanks

 

[JonahRamone]

Got a Milotic with Coil and no physical attacking moves...explain please. I get the Def boost may be useful, but really?

Edit: TWICE IN A ROW NOW

One Coil gives you 100% accuracy on Muddy Water; two gives you 100% accuracy on Hypnosis. That's the point of the set. The defence boost makes it more bulky. The Att boost is wasted, but what physical attacks would you want to run on it?

 

[JonahRamone]

Just putting this out there, but Urshifu seems a bit overlevelled. It's getting ohko's left right and centre with just life orb (we're talking not even crits and not SE moves).

 

[JonahRamone]

I just got Regileki with Eerie Impulse, Volt Switch, Thunder Cage and Protect. With a Normal Gem. WAT

 

[Parnassius]

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7randomdoublesbattle-1213811131
Before the battle starts manectric lowers the opposing pokemon's attacks using intimidate, an ability only its mega has access to

Edit:
I think I was able to somewhat reproduce this by forcing this line to get manectric-mega when pokemon.length === 1.
This causes hasAbility to be set to { Intimidate: true }, while ability gets correctly set to one of base manectric's abilities. Finally this line forces the ability to be Intimidate

 

[Celever]

Alcremie shouldn't be able to be generated without Decorate: it removes its utility completely. Arguably it should just be generated with Decorate / Recover / D-Gleam / Protect without fail; Mystical Fire is occasionally nice but pales in comparison to Decorate. Perhaps Mystical Fire over Protect if that's preferred.

Edit: Sandaconda should also definitely not be G-Max. It's a Coil set, so the SpDef boosts from regular form's Ground-Type attacks makes it much more of a wall, while the residual damage from its G-Max move is nothing to write home about.

 

[JonahRamone]

Alcremie shouldn't be able to be generated without Decorate: it removes its utility completely. Arguably it should just be generated with Decorate / Recover / D-Gleam / Protect without fail; Mystical Fire is occasionally nice but pales in comparison to Decorate. Perhaps Mystical Fire over Protect if that's preferred.

Edit: Sandaconda should also definitely not be G-Max. It's a Coil set, so the SpDef boosts from regular form's Ground-Type attacks makes it much more of a wall, while the residual damage from its G-Max move is nothing to write home about.

Decorate Alcremie is a little bit broken tbh, I think it's fine for it to not always have the move. Makes it a little less predictable and easier to take your opponent unawares.

Definitely agree on your second point though. G-Max Sanda is a literal trash panda.

 

[fitzy72]

Just got an Articuno with Ice Beam/Toxic/Heal Bell/Roost which definitely seem's like a singles set. I'd expect something like Icy Wind/Freeze Dry/Hurricane/Protect in doubles.

 

[LoSconosciuto]

I think lagging tail (or full incense) is a better item for lopunny. Iron ball only halves the speed: this can be not enough sometimes to outspeed pokemon, and can be a malus if the opponent has a trick room setter

 

[pokeblade101]

Iron Ball also makes any Pokemon vulnerable to Ground moves but I think laggin tail would be better

 

[Celever]

I feel like Charizard-Gmax should have Blaze for its ability. Obviously it's doubles so there's a chance you can set up sun another way, but Blaze would more consistently be a boost in a pinch and even if you do manage to set up sun another way, Blaze isn't much less powerful than Solar Power is.

I won anyway though so nbd nbd :P

 

[longhiep341]

I suggest that Sleep Clause is added. Sleep mons are overwhelming here, and the argument for why DOU doesn't implement it can't really work. DOU doesn't have it while Rand should because:
_ You can easily add Terrain support because Tapu Fini and Koko are good mons, which you rarely get in a random environment.
_ Redirection is scarce, and Safety Goggles isn't a thing.
_ Fast sleep inducer, whether with Tailwind/Speed boosts from Max Airstream or naturally fast ones like Roserade make it even more matchup dependent, and making an opposing Dynamax mon go to sleep is almost a guaranteed win.

 

[MK]

hyper voice on exploud is a move for cowards.

quoting this part of the above post, I just got an exploud with boomburst and hyper voice:

imo it's redundant so would it be possible for both to not appear in the same moveset? ty