Format Discussion Scarlet/Violet Random Doubles Battle Sets

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

What should be posted here?
- Accurate reports or screenshots of objectively bad movesets, ability synergy, items, et cetera.
- Suggestions on moves, Tera Types, or items to add to (or remove from) Pokemon, backed by good reasoning.

Please do not post:
- One-liners. This includes suggestions without any backup reasoning.
- Complaints of illegal Pokemon or sets.
- Requests to add the National Dex.
- Posts complaining about unfairness, demanding certain Pokemon should be "banned" from the format, or complaining about hax.*
- Screenshots of movesets that are not actually bad.

Important details about Random Battles that affect set effectiveness and generation!
- All Pokemon have 85 EVs in every stat with a neutral nature, unless 0 Atk EVs/IVs and 0 Spe EVs/IVs would be beneficial. In these cases, the rest of the EVs are still 85 and the nature is still neutral.
- The set generation is random and runs on an algorithm. Sets will not be identical from match to match, and some sets may be slightly better than others; this thread is only for reporting unviable/undesirable sets. If you want the same few sets every time, you should play Battle Factory instead!
- Unreleased Pokemon and abilities and illegal move combinations are allowed in Random Battles.
- The Random Battles Development Council has voted that Ally Switch and Commander will not exist in the format until further notice. Sleep Clause also exists via council vote and will not be removed. Please do not request these things.

*Disclaimer (READ BEFORE POSTING):
Random Battles try to always make every part of the competitive Pokemon realm available (not including traits exclusive to AG like Evasion, duplicate species or OHKO moves), along with always aiming to give each Pokemon its best competitive options on their sets. Our method for nerfing strong Pokemon includes a subjective level reduction based on objective winrate data (availabe on the /rwr command), while we try to buff reduced winrate Pokemon by increasing their levels or thinking on alternative sets that might be more useful for them.
Therefore, this thread is not for suggestions, questions or complaints about a particular set that seems too overwhelming for you, as at best it's an issue that will be solved with level nerfing, and if winrates don't abide to it being broken you can reach the Random Battles room to ask for suggestions on how to properly deal with it.

 

[matthewssandslash]

Hurray! Thank you so much for implementing this. I am so excited about this and I'm sure tons of people in my draft league discord will be thrilled as well.

This is going to be fun!

QUESTION: How aggressively will levels be adjusted post-release? Is it weekly, biweekly?

Thanks so much!

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

Hurray! Thank you so much for implementing this. I am so excited about this and I'm sure tons of people in my draft league discord will be thrilled as well.

This is going to be fun!

QUESTION: How aggressively will levels be adjusted post-release? Is it weekly, biweekly?

Thanks so much!

Monthly. Best we can do.

 

[hello world]

I got in a random FFA with Scarfed Hippodown knowing Helping Hand and Whirlwind. I forgot the other moves, though. Also, not complaining about Helping Hand, but about the Scarf. Edit: My suggestion: Change out the Scarf as Hippodown doesn't seem to get much out of it.

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

I got in a random FFA with Scarfed Hippodown knowing Helping Hand and Whirlwind. I forgot the other moves, though. Also, not complaining about Helping Hand, but about the Scarf.

your hippowdon got a scarf tricked onto it.

 

[hello world]

your hippowdon got a scarf tricked onto it.

I wasn't really paying attention, but I don't think so.

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

I wasn't really paying attention, but I don't think so.

Generated 700 sets for Hippowdon in [Gen 9] Random Doubles Battle:
Approximately 0% (0 sets) had the item Choice Scarf.

 

[Karthik]

murkrow is an actual garbage mon if it doesn't always have tailwind imo

 

[hello world]

Generated 700 sets for Hippowdon in [Gen 9] Random Doubles Battle:
Approximately 0% (0 sets) had the item Choice Scarf.

Oh. Sorry.

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

View attachment 527158
murkrow is an actual garbage mon if it doesn't always have tailwind imo

ok pick a move to permanently delete from all murkrows

i'll try to find another solution, but that's the base one

 

[snorlax142857]

Will two months be enough time to make sure level balancing is done to an acceptable degree and sets and tera types are optimized? With how young the format is, I was a bit surprised by the decision to include it in this year's Rands Slam.

 

[Celever]

Will two months be enough time to make sure level balancing is done to an acceptable degree and sets and tera types are optimized? With how young the format is, I was a bit surprised by the decision to include it in this year's Rands Slam.

Every format is a constant beta, so 9 dubs definitely won't be optimised by that point, but 8 dubs isn't actually optimised either. It will definitely still be janky during the tournament, but tournaments are also useful ways for us to review the current state of the format with some higher level gameplay.

Aside from that we do have to ride the hype train a little bit, 9 dubs is a much more popular format than 8 dubs right now A) because it's current gen and B) based on the feedback we've got, people genuinely like it a lot more. Whether it's because they think tera > dyna, they like the lack of jank from the roles system, or whatever else, 9 dubs has had one of the most receptive format launches I've seen.

 

[deepseafishing]

For the love of god give hisuian lilligant chlorophyl and not hustle. with leftovers it can actually become a good bulky sweeper, like tera steel victory dance double stab protect or ice spinner would be soooo good. or if you keep hustle, just give it wide lens so its semi acceptable. sleep powder is whatever.
also bulk up leftovers palafin would be great

 

[Celever]

For the love of god give hisuian lilligant chlorophyl and not hustle. with leftovers it can actually become a good bulky sweeper, like tera steel victory dance double stab protect or ice spinner would be soooo good. or if you keep hustle, just give it wide lens so its semi acceptable. sleep powder is whatever.
also bulk up leftovers palafin would be great

Hustle is necessary on Pokémon that have Hustle, because based on random battles’ principles Pokémon should be running the sets that they would in an optimal level 100v100 scenario. While level balancing exists to shore up stat discrepancy, giving Lilligant-H bad damage output and letting level balancing do the rest of the work isn’t something that the council deems desirable. Rands aims to replicate how Pokémon actually function, and if you’re playing to win in any standard format, Lilligant-H functions with Hustle.

Sleep is so good in randdubs that it’s common for us to be requested to add Sleep Clause. If we did, Lil-H would probably lose Sleep Powder because sleep would be fairly weak as a mechanic. As it stands, it isn’t. This is another council decision.

Bulk Up Palafin may be adopted — it’s something I’m personally against because I think Bulk Up is its worst set in singles by a considerable amount, but I’m also the only member of the dubs team to weigh in on this suggestion so far. In the fast paced format of randdubs, I don’t want to try and waste a turn getting Palafin to the power level that it would hit with Choice Band anyway, and the gain of being able to switch between Wave Crash and Jet Punch is IMO worth considerably less than that wasted turn Palafin has to spend out on the field. In most games you won’t be able to position into getting a Bulk Up off, and really all you’ll be left with is a weak Palafin. Palafin runs Bulk Up in teambuilt dubs because it has the proper EV investment to facilitate it, but rands has 85 EVs in every stat and a neutral nature.

 

[deepseafishing]

but still I believe that h-lil is not good with hustle, because as an ability is so inconsistent that it overshadows how good of a victory dance sweeper it could be, and u can't reliably set up and become even more bulky with the defence raise, if u set up only to miss ur attacks. I think it would be so much better as 2 sets. a choice band leaf blade close combat ice spinner poison jab and a bulky one with victory dance leaf blade cc ice spinner/protect maybe lefties or idk. but if u wanna go the hustle route better do it choice banded

 

[Catzzadilla]

I don't think I've ever had or even seen Tatsudozo in Ranbat doubles, let alone even seen the two mons on the same team. Is this deliberate?

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

I don't think I've ever had or even seen Tatsudozo in Ranbat doubles, let alone even seen the two mons on the same team. Is this deliberate?

Per Council decision, Tatsugiri will never get Commander, ever, even if it generates with a Dondozo. There is no restriction on having both on the same team, but also having both is unremarkable without Commander.

 

[ionnss]

i got this dragonite recently:
Dragonite @ Life Orb
Ability: Inner Focus
Level: 82
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 85 HP / 85 Def / 85 SpA / 85 SpD / 85 Spe
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Tera Blast
- Tailwind
- Draco Meteor

no physical moves other than tb flying, so it gave it 0 attack ivs/evs, which is problematic since its physical attack is still higher than its special.
idk what other mons this applies to, but its probably worth noting

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

i got this dragonite recently:
Dragonite @ Life Orb
Ability: Inner Focus
Level: 82
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 85 HP / 85 Def / 85 SpA / 85 SpD / 85 Spe
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Tera Blast
- Tailwind
- Draco Meteor

no physical moves other than tb flying, so it gave it 0 attack ivs/evs, which is problematic since its physical attack is still higher than its special.
idk what other mons this applies to, but its probably worth noting

We'll investigate and fix this issue, thank you.

 

[pyuk]

On the topic of Hustle Lilligant, I want to second the idea of Wide Lens on the Sleep Powder set since it not only mitigates the accuracy drop from Hustle but also boosts Sleep Powder’s own accuracy from 75 to 82 which can give more chances to use Victory Dance to make up for the loss of power.

Anyway, can Tera Blast Farigiraf get Tera Fighting in addition to or instead of Tera Fairy? Having three stab coverage options to choose from and all of them being resisted by Steel kinda sucks, and Fighting resists Bug and Dark just as well as Fairy does.

 

[pyuk]

It's been a few days, so I hope no one minds if I double post.

This is a free for all battle, but as I understand it this set is still representative of something that can be generated in doubles. Leppa Berry on lead Pawmot seems like a bad item. It's hard enough to get two Revival Blessings off even from a back slot, but as the lead it has to either switch or somehow survive while a teammate faints just to have the opportunity to even use it once. This set doesn't even have Protect, so it staying in and surviving that long without being heavily targeted seems unlikely. With that in mind, I think Eject Pack would be a very strong item for the lead slot specifically, as it would let it pivot out after firing off a Close Combat or just pivot instantly off of a lead Intimidate.

Also, I keep losing the screenshots, but twice now I've gotten Politoed with Hydro Pump, Weather Ball, Muddy Water, and Ice Beam. That seems like overkill on Water STABs, and from what I can tell by looking at the code, there doesn't seem to be any special casing for Weather Ball to treat it as the same type as the weather the Pokemon sets, so it seems like it might be bypassing protections against getting 3 attacks of the same type by being counted as Normal type. Then again, Basculin and Palafin are running around with intended triple Water STAB sets, so maybe that protection wouldn't even apply in this case. Regardless, I would like to not have that many redundant Water moves on Politoed, please.

 

[livid washed]

Thanks for your suggestions.

On the topic of Hustle Lilligant, I want to second the idea of Wide Lens on the Sleep Powder set since it not only mitigates the accuracy drop from Hustle but also boosts Sleep Powder’s own accuracy from 75 to 82 which can give more chances to use Victory Dance to make up for the loss of power.

This is an idea that has been rejected in singles; it has more merit here due to the greater power of sleep (no Sleep Clause). Currently, we still think it's an unnecessary hardcode with questionable benefit compared to Life Orb's power boost. It'll still miss with Wide Lens, just less often.

Anyway, can Tera Blast Farigiraf get Tera Fighting in addition to or instead of Tera Fairy? Having three stab coverage options to choose from and all of them being resisted by Steel kinda sucks, and Fighting resists Bug and Dark just as well as Fairy does.

Tera Blast Farigiraf has been removed. It meant having no Hyper Voice and we didn't love that.

It's been a few days, so I hope no one minds if I double post.View attachment 576320
This is a free for all battle, but as I understand it this set is still representative of something that can be generated in doubles. Leppa Berry on lead Pawmot seems like a bad item. It's hard enough to get two Revival Blessings off even from a back slot, but as the lead it has to either switch or somehow survive while a teammate faints just to have the opportunity to even use it once. This set doesn't even have Protect, so it staying in and surviving that long without being heavily targeted seems unlikely. With that in mind, I think Eject Pack would be a very strong item for the lead slot specifically, as it would let it pivot out after firing off a Close Combat or just pivot instantly off of a lead Intimidate.

We will be updating Pawmot in the next update, which is probably with the release of DLC2. Leppa Berry will certainly be removed, for the reasons you mentioned. Eject Pack will not be added; most of us consider the interaction with Intimidate to be bad, since it can easily be exploited by the opponent. We'll give it Clear Amulet or a conventional item, i.e. Sitrus Berry/Life Orb. Maybe Focus Sash if leading, we'll see.

Also, I keep losing the screenshots, but twice now I've gotten Politoed with Hydro Pump, Weather Ball, Muddy Water, and Ice Beam. That seems like overkill on Water STABs, and from what I can tell by looking at the code, there doesn't seem to be any special casing for Weather Ball to treat it as the same type as the weather the Pokemon sets, so it seems like it might be bypassing protections against getting 3 attacks of the same type by being counted as Normal type. Then again, Basculin and Palafin are running around with intended triple Water STAB sets, so maybe that protection wouldn't even apply in this case. Regardless, I would like to not have that many redundant Water moves on Politoed, please.

Triple Water move Politoed is intentional; in fact, it is a fixed set. Choiced Politoed previously had Earth Power instead of Weather Ball, but Earth Power was nearly useless since a neutral Hydro Pump/Weather Ball in rain significantly outdamages 2x super effective Earth Power. Despite having three Water moves, each of the three will get clicked much more often than an auxillary fourth attack like Earth Power or Focus Blast. Icy Wind is another possible 4th, but Politoed usually just wants to do massive damage with its Water moves.

While not everyone in setdev likes triple Water move, Politoed has been performing extremely well since the change so it is unlikely to leave in the near future. Maybe we'll try something different down the line, but not now.

 

[tyufvfv]

- The Random Battles Development Council has voted that Ally Switch and Commander will not exist in the format until further notice. They have also decided that Sleep Clause will not be added to the format. Please do not request these things.

I thought there isn't supposed to be a sleep clause in random doubles S/V now im confused..

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

View attachment 595299
I thought there isn't supposed to be a sleep clause in random doubles S/V now im confused..

Sleep Clause was added recently via a council revote. Thank you, I will amend the post accordingly.

 

[ionnss]

destiny bond, taunt, spikes or maybe water coverage in aqua jet or waterfall would all be much better 4th moves when tspikes are rejected