Format Discussion Scarlet/Violet Random Battle Sets

Spiritomb must have Pressure on the Bulky Setup Sweeper set
It makes a lot more sense and has a lot more utility, considering a "setup war" scenario against another Special Attacker. Even Physical Attackers would still be crippled by Pressure if they couldn't deal enough damage to Spiritomb, which can Rest and recover again. Infiltrator on Bulky Support has more value
 

A Cake Wearing A Hat

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Random Battle Lead
Spiritomb must have Pressure on the Bulky Setup Sweeper set
It makes a lot more sense and has a lot more utility, considering a "setup war" scenario against another Special Attacker. Even Physical Attackers would still be crippled by Pressure if they couldn't deal enough damage to Spiritomb, which can Rest and recover again. Infiltrator on Bulky Support has more value
I'll make sure to do this
 
So today i have been given a Squawkabilly-White with the following set:
@ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Hustle
Level: 88
Tera Type: Normal
- Brave Bird
- Double-Edge
- Parting Shot
- Foul Play

I do feel like Hustle has a major issue with Foul Play, since Foul play does has to deal with the lowered Accuracy and uses opps atk stat. Since this set also has Parting Shot, it would work well with more defensive Moves like Taunt or Roost, which it has access to, but doenst get in any of the 4 types of Squawkabilly that do run around. My advice, take Foul Play out of Squawkabilly's Pool since neither Intimidate nor Hustle work welll with it, and maybe take in Taunt/Roost for it.
 

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So today i have been given a Squawkabilly-White with the following set:
@ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Hustle
Level: 88
Tera Type: Normal
- Brave Bird
- Double-Edge
- Parting Shot
- Foul Play

I do feel like Hustle has a major issue with Foul Play, since Foul play does has to deal with the lowered Accuracy and uses opps atk stat. Since this set also has Parting Shot, it would work well with more defensive Moves like Taunt or Roost, which it has access to, but doenst get in any of the 4 types of Squawkabilly that do run around. My advice, take Foul Play out of Squawkabilly's Pool since neither Intimidate nor Hustle work welll with it, and maybe take in Taunt/Roost for it.
Foul Play is boosted by your Hustle; it works similarly to Guts or Huge Power or Choice Band. It is one of the only coverage moves it can run that neutrally hits Rock and Steel, and it's not going anywhere.
 

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Random Battle Lead
is there a point to having acro and brave bird on the same set? i think there's far better options than running 2 similar power flying stabs like having stone edge, poison jab or roost
Brave Bird can be used immediately but has a drawback, whereas Acro needs to be used after setting up but is more reliable and safer. Fighting/Flying is a typing good enough that coverage isn't objectively necessary, so it can afford the luxury of running both.

Poison Jab literally only hits Dedenne, which makes it near worthless, and Stone Edge is already in the movepool as an option to be generated over one of the flying moves sometimes.
 
Foul Play is boosted by your Hustle; it works similarly to Guts or Huge Power or Choice Band. It is one of the only coverage moves it can run that neutrally hits Rock and Steel, and it's not going anywhere.
The more you learn. Then what abt the 2nd Part of Implementing the other moves to get variety, longevity and utility in taunt/roost?
 
IMO Dugtrio should roll Tera Ground or Tera Rock on the Choice Band set instead of Tera Fairy (I got that during one of my games). You generally aren't living anything with Dug, and I don't see what Fairy Dugtrio does over than avoid a stray sucker I guess. I think the extra power of Ground Tera Earthquake is definitely more worth it than Tera Fairy Dugtrio.

Also may I suggest swapping Mewtwo's Tera Ghost with Tera Fighting if Mewtwo doesn't roll the latter in addition to Tera Ghost already? There aren't that many bulky ghosts and psychics that Mewtwo needs the extra power for (except for maybe Giratina or Mew). Aura Sphere and Shadow Ball have the same base power but Tera Fighting Mewtwo avoids Psychic's weakness to Dark and Bug while Ghost Mewtwo still is weak to Dark and Ghost. I think the utility of being able to live a sucker punch or turn the tables on dark types is more worth it for Mewtwo than whatever Mewtwo currently gets from Tera Ghost.
 
Last edited:

Tarrembeau

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IMO Dugtrio should roll Tera Ground or Tera Rock on the Choice Band set instead of Tera Fairy (I got that during one of my games). You generally aren't living anything with Dug, and I don't see what Fairy Dugtrio does over than avoid a stray sucker I guess. I think the extra power of Ground Tera Earthquake is definitely more worth it than Tera Fairy Dugtrio.
Point of giving immunities to the various tera types of dugtrio is to trap a wider range of mons than just ground weak ones. Fairy helps trapping dragons, most notably the ones stuck on outrage
 
Point of giving immunities to the various tera types of dugtrio is to trap a wider range of mons than just ground weak ones. Fairy helps trapping dragons, most notably the ones stuck on outrage
Cool, that makes sense. But if that's the case, I feel like Dark Tera Dugtrio would be the better option to have always because I feel like people are more likely to lock themselves into a Psychic move for Choice Specs than they are to use a move like Outrage or lock themselves on a Dragon move with a Choice Item. Plus, you would get STAB on sucker punch.
 
Suggestion: Prevent terrain seeds and Booster Energy from generating on leads.

Sometimes Pokemon that use terrain seeds generate in the lead slot. Perhaps the same can happen with Booster Energy users or other Pokemon that proc once-per-battle effects upon switch-in, though I haven't seen that. I can't think of any other such effects besides Intrepid Sword and Dauntless Shield, but those are Zacian/Zamazenta's only ability, so if Zacian/Zamazenta generate as a lead there's nothing to be done. The terrain seed and BE Pokemon all have sets that don't use those items though, so it's fixable there, and maybe in other cases I might have missed.

These items on a lead are almost always inoptimal because your opponent has a full, unknown team you haven't scouted, so you'll generally switch the Pokemon out, then they're left a lot weaker for the rest of the game. Additionally, IIRC this suggestion was approved in Gen 8 Randoms for terrain seeds, so it should be implemented in Gen 9 too.

Here's a replay where this happened with a Rillaboom. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9randombattle-1758528847
 

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Random Battle Lead
Suggestion: Prevent terrain seeds and Booster Energy from generating on leads.

Sometimes Pokemon that use terrain seeds generate in the lead slot. Perhaps the same can happen with Booster Energy users or other Pokemon that proc once-per-battle effects upon switch-in, though I haven't seen that. I can't think of any other such effects besides Intrepid Sword and Dauntless Shield, but those are Zacian/Zamazenta's only ability, so if Zacian/Zamazenta generate as a lead there's nothing to be done. The terrain seed and BE Pokemon all have sets that don't use those items though, so it's fixable there, and maybe in other cases I might have missed.

These items on a lead are almost always inoptimal because your opponent has a full, unknown team you haven't scouted, so you'll generally switch the Pokemon out, then they're left a lot weaker for the rest of the game. Additionally, IIRC this suggestion was approved in Gen 8 Randoms for terrain seeds, so it should be implemented in Gen 9 too.

Here's a replay where this happened with a Rillaboom. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9randombattle-1758528847
Booster Energy, Zacian, and Zamazenta already don't generate on lead. It's not really possible to prevent Grassy Seed Rillaboom lead though, for technical reasons. Yes, i know, it sucks, but there's nothing that can be done outside of removing it altogether, which is undesirable.
 

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is this supposed to happen? adamant crystal is the key item in PLA, so unless they've changed it in SV it shouldn't be holdable. boosts from adamant orb (1.2x dragon and steel base damage) weren't present.
 
Booster Energy, Zacian, and Zamazenta already don't generate on lead. It's not really possible to prevent Grassy Seed Rillaboom lead though, for technical reasons. Yes, i know, it sucks, but there's nothing that can be done outside of removing it altogether, which is undesirable.
Gotcha, thanks for the reply! Could you explain more about the technical set generation issues here? (Mainly I'm just curious, but also it'd be helpful to have a better understanding of set generation when making suggestions.)
 

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Gotcha, thanks for the reply! Could you explain more about the technical set generation issues here? (Mainly I'm just curious, but also it'd be helpful to have a better understanding of set generation when making suggestions.)
So, the way that the generation order works is pokemon > moves > ability > item > next pokemon, going down the list with no reordering or going back afterwards. Each lead issue is different, given this order of operations.

-Zacian and Zamazenta can easily be rejected on the "pick a pokemon" stage of team generation; when starting out, if it tries to generate Zacian or Zamazenta, it just says no and tries again.

-Booster Energy users are in the item phase, but they have a good alternative item that they can use in Leftovers. So, if a mon that would get Booster Energy is in the lead slot, it says "no booster energy, you get leftovers instead".

-Rillaboom is similarly hung up in the item phase, but it doesn't have any other item that would let Acrobatics function. Sitrus would be pretty bad on an offensive mon like Rillaboom and unreliable at best, it can't proc White Herb, and anything else just wouldn't work at all. This also can't be solved by just not having it generate Acrobatics, since the set Acrobatics is on contains four moves and always wants Acrobatics in literally any other situation. It's overall really complex, and the only solution available to us right now would be preventing Rillaboom from generating in the lead slot altogether, similarly to Zacian and Zamazenta, but that has the collateral of making Rillaboom less common and also nuking its Choice item sets from being the lead.
 
okay so abt the Floatzel set.
It has 2 Primary sets, the fast Attacker and the setup sweeper.
I do not see why the setup sweeper would settle for a move that has 35bp less than the strongest move avaible. Im speaking abt Liquidation over Wave Crash. Yes the recoil is a downside, but on a sweeper, you wanna deal as much dmg as possible to prevent being killed back. And lets be honest, floatzel is strong and fast, but really not bulky. Example, after a bulk up, wave crash kills Iron thorn, liquidation 2hits. Sure, using Terra you can continue to bulk up and the move with less bp also kills, but honestly, when we settle for liquidation over Wave Crash, we could also suggest Tbolt over Volttackle on pika. just that this only costs pika 30 bp, not 35
 

pokeblade101

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okay so abt the Floatzel set.
It has 2 Primary sets, the fast Attacker and the setup sweeper.
I do not see why the setup sweeper would settle for a move that has 35bp less than the strongest move avaible. Im speaking abt Liquidation over Wave Crash. Yes the recoil is a downside, but on a sweeper, you wanna deal as much dmg as possible to prevent being killed back. And lets be honest, floatzel is strong and fast, but really not bulky. Example, after a bulk up, wave crash kills Iron thorn, liquidation 2hits. Sure, using Terra you can continue to bulk up and the move with less bp also kills, but honestly, when we settle for liquidation over Wave Crash, we could also suggest Tbolt over Volttackle on pika. just that this only costs pika 30 bp, not 35
Wave Crash + Life Orb is not desirable because of the large amount of recoil it would create for Floatzel. Yes, Floatzel is not bulky but having enough health to get off attacks is important in a format like randbats especially in situations where you need to take hits while bulking up. Pikachu does not have Life Orb and also you're switching from a physical move to special move in this case. Furthermore, Pikachu's entire job is just to punch holes in teams, it's not exactly a sweeper.
 
Just a quick follow-up question on Pokémon being prevented from generating in the lead spot: is it really necessary to prevent lead Zacian? I understand that's a bit of a waste, but even then Zacian seems so good that I would still prefer Zacian over a great number of other options in the lead spot. In other words, is lead Zacian really so bad that it is worth lowering the chance of drawing a Zacian for your team?
 

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Just a quick follow-up question on Pokémon being prevented from generating in the lead spot: is it really necessary to prevent lead Zacian? I understand that's a bit of a waste, but even then Zacian seems so good that I would still prefer Zacian over a great number of other options in the lead spot. In other words, is lead Zacian really so bad that it is worth lowering the chance of drawing a Zacian for your team?
We'd get complaints about it endlessly if we didn't.
 

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