Different Playing Styles - Discussion

bojangles

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Different Playing Styles


As with any metagame, Ubers has three dominant types of play: offense, defense, and Baton Pass. However, offense is by far the most common method of play, for seemingly obvious reasons. In this discussion, I’d like to take a closer look at why we usually run offense, and hopefully maybe even encourage other types of play.

Offense

When we look at the base stats of the Pokémon in Ubers, it’s pretty easy why so many people use offensive teams: there are so many Pokémon who have obscenely high base Special Attack, Attack, and/or Speed stats. For example, we have Rayquaza (150 / 150 / 95), Mewtwo (110 / 154 / 130), Palkia (120 / 150 / 100), and many, many others. Add this with the relatively low amount of Ubers walls, and you’ve got yourself a very offensive metagame. Many offensive teams use multiple sweepers, in addition to a Pokémon to set up entry hazards, a Pokémon to control the weather (sometimes), and, usually, a Wobbuffet to help provide a safe environment in which to set-up and then sweep.

Pros

The pros of Ubers offensive are actually quite obvious: you can kill things quickly, and fairly easily. Once your Dragon Dance Rayquaza or Calm Mind Mewtwo gets set up, not much is going to be able to stop it, barring certain Choice Scarf or priority users. This is made even easier by one single Uber: Wobbuffet. By using the combination of Encore and Shadow Tag, Wobbuffet can lock a Pokémon into its last-used move. Then, it can switch out into one of your sweepers, giving it a free turn to boost its stats. For example, by Encoring a Groudon’s Earthquake, you can give a free switch in for Rayquaza, and a turn to use Swords or Dragon Dance while Groudon switches out (since it can’t change moves). Also, Wobbuffet can use Safeguard to block any sorts of status, meaning that status moves, such as Thunder Wave or Toxic, can be turned into set-up bait. Ubers offense is also so powerful, that, with a little support, Pokémon can blow through even their supposed counters or checks.

Cons

Everything I said above is also a con. By this I mean that if your opponent’s offense team gets started, its going to be hard for you to counter it, unless you pack the aforementioned priority or Choice Scarf user (which are not uncommon, but have possibly fainted). Futhermore, stall can create huge problems for offensive teams that don’t have mixed sweepers. Although many Pokémon are powerful, some walls are still more defensive, such as Giratina, Blissey, and Forretress, meaning that they can stop a sweep (for example, most Rayquaza carry Fire-type special attacks just for Forretress). Also, the entry hazards set by stall teams will wear down your offensive team quickly. Basically, it’s easy for offensive teams to win quickly, but its equally easy for your opponent to do the same thing.

Example of an Extremely Threatening Offensive Pokémon

Rayquaza


Part of Rayquaza’s deadliness is the fact that it can run multiple sets, such as Swords Dance versus mixed, each with its own counters/checks. However, in my opinion, this is possibly the most threatening.

Rayquaza @ Life Orb
Jolly Nature
EVs: 32 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD / 216 Spe
- Dragon Dance
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Overheat

This set is so extremely deadly when it sets up. Outrage will be killing pretty much any Pokémon who doesn’t resist it. Earthquake will squash any Steel-type who does resist Outrage (eg Jirachi). Overheat is for pesky Forretress, who can otherwise wall this set, and kill Rayquaza with Explosion. The only Pokémon this set needs to watch out for are base 95+ Speed Choice Scarf users and Lugia, both of whom are handled by Wobbuffet. Wobbuffet also helps Rayquaza find chances to set up.

Example of a Successful Offensive Team

Turnabout Ubers! by Theorymon

Stall

Stall is a playstyle that is completely different from offense. It relies on using entry hazards and damaging status, such as poison, to eliminate your opponent’s team. As such, its “stalling” feel is loved by many for its reliability, but it is also hated by many for the same reason. Although there are relatively few walls in Ubers, they all have quite impressive base stats, like with Lugia (106 / 130 / 154) or Giratina (150 / 120 / 120). Furthermore, many “offensive” Pokémon in Ubers also have great defensive stats, like with Mewtwo (106 / 90 / 90). This means that with the right EV and move tweaking, many more Pokémon can viably work in Ubers stall.

Pros

Stall, as mentioned, is extremely reliable. The Pokémon who are used on stall teams are made to be bulky and take moves. There is no frailty on stall teams for your opponent to exploit. There is also less reliance on attacking moves, meaning that “hax”, via misses, will not influence your side of the game. Furthermore, stall teams are made to deal with many of the metagame’s threats. This means that there is usually no one Pokémon who can take out your entire team. Since stall is much less popular than offense, players will not prepare as much for it. This means that many offense teams are quite weak to stall, giving you an easy win.

Cons

Since stall teams kill over time, the match itself will be much, much longer. This means that there are more chances for you to get taken out by your opponent’s team. Your lack of attack moves can be problematic when your opponent’s Garchomp is ramping up its Attack with Swords Dance (this, however, doesn’t mean that it can’t be dealt with). Furthermore, it is more likely that they will score critical hits, since the match will be going on for longer. Also, certain Pokémon can truly defeat stall, such as mixed Palkia or Dialga.

Example of a great Stall Pokémon


Forretress @ Leftovers
Careful Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 6 Def / 252 SpD
- Rapid Spin
- Toxic Spikes
- Spikes
- Payback

Forretress is everything that a stall Pokémon should be. It can take pretty much every physical attack in the game (read: not Fire-type in the sun), meaning that it can totally wall the likes of Garchomp, Tyranitar, Groudon, and Rayquaza, among others (as long as they don’t have Fire-type moves). It also has access to every type of entry hazards in the game, as well as Rapid Spin, meaning that it has a very special niche in the metagame. By setting up Spikes and Toxic Spikes, it can weaken your opponent’s team, which is the very base of stall teams. Rapid Spin allows Flying-type defenders, such as Lugia, to have an easier time switching in, as well as just minimizing the residual damage that your team has to deal with. Giratina or Giratina-O can work really well with Forretress, since its Ghost-typing blocks Rapid Spin from getting rid of your entry hazards.

Example of a great Stall Team

Rising from the Storms by Jibaku

Baton Pass

Baton Pass is a very, very rare, yet very threatening type of play in the Ubers tier. This reason is simple: Mew. Mew can pass +2 of any stat, as well as Bulk Up or Calm Mind. Mew is also fairly bulky (not without support though). There are also many Pokémon in Ubers who can set up dual screens, since they are many given to Psychic-types, of whom there are many. There are also many options for Mew to pass to, so you have quite a selection to chose from.

Pros

Baton Pass’s purpose is to prime a single Pokémon to sweep your opponent’s team. This involves making it into a “juggernaut” so to speak, but pumping it up with different stat moves and support (like Light Screen + Reflect). Since your Pokémon has so many boosts, it is quite easy for it to sweep your opponent’s team. Furthermore, even less players prepare for Baton Pass than for stall, so it is quite easy to get your strategy going. When executing your strategy, you have the advantage because you are essentially running the game. What I mean is this: your strategy exists almost independently of your opponent’s. You don’t need prompting from your opponent, nor do you need to really check threats. Once you set up, you pretty much have the game won, barring critical hits. Even if your opponent manages to kill your main sweeper, you should have a backup to finish the job.

Cons

It’s helplessly predictable. Once your opponent sees Mew, its quite obvious that you have a Baton Pass team. Then, your opponent can start taking countermeasures (if he/she has any). Also, every member of the Baton Pass chain is extremely important; therefore, if your opponent stops one of them from doing its job, it can potentially ruin your strategy. However, this can still be played around (don’t underestimate Baton Pass).

Example of an excellent Baton Pass Pokémon


Mew @ Lum Berry
Calm Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 190 SpD / 68 Spe
- Baton Pass
- Taunt
- Rock Polish
- Swords Dance / Nasty Plot

Mew is just a Baton Pass monster. It’s easy to write so much about it. If you want to read more about it, I’m going to direct you to the Mew Discussion thread.

Example of a great Baton Pass team

Yu-Gi-Oh Themed Team by XtrEEmMaShEEn3k2

Conclusion

Discuss your favorite playing methods in Ubers and the advantages and disadvantages of each. Also discuss the Pokémon whom you use in each type of team. Hopefully, this will encourage people to try more than just offense. Please feel free to discuss the slightly more obscure types of play, such as QuickStall or Screen Offense as well!
 
Ubers has three dominant types of play: offense, defense, and Baton Pass.
I don't know about Baton pass being "Dominant" in any tier,
sure it has usage's,
but not nearly as much as Offense or Stall.
 
@aidan: Baton Pass teams used to be the most dominant style of play, sitting at the top of the leaderboard, and they can still sweep many teams.

I wouldn't call them Baton Pass teams, though, since they are heavily involved with other supporting options. I would instead call them "Support-based" teams, or maybe even "Combo" teams, drawing a term from the Magic lexicon.

We all know that I've got a fetish for stall teams, so I'm going to write about them later.

EDIT: I think that we should make a distinction between classical and modern stall teams. Jibaku's team is an example of Modern Stall, while the team I'm posting below, my stall team, is a great example of a "bog standard" Classical Stall team. I won't go over the whole team, but notice the differences between mine and Jibaku's: I use Latias and Giratina, while he uses Palkia and Giratina-O. Modern Stall is played more dynamically, while Classical Stall remains conservative in its outlook.

If you're in a gambling mood, try leading with Forretress rather than Groudon. This almost guarantees that there won't be residual damage on your side of the field, barring having to face the rare Dialga lead. Of course, you don't really have favorable matchups against much other than Deoxys-S and Mew. Oh yeah, make sure you have one phazer at all times (I have slashes on some of my team members) to make sure Ninjask doesn't cause trouble.

Code:
mtr12's Classical Stall Team
 
Groudon @ Leftovers
Ability: Drought
EVs: 252 HP/28 Atk/196 Def/32 Spd
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Roar / Flamethrower
---
Latias (F) @ Soul Dew
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 208 HP/248 Spd/54 SDef
Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Dragon Pulse
- Thunder / Grass Knot
- Recover
---
Forretress (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP/12 Def/244 SDef
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Spikes
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Payback
---
Blissey (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 6 HP/252 Def/252 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Seismic Toss
- Toxic
- Wish
- Protect
---
Giratina @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP/248 Def/12 SDef
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Will-O-Wisp
- Dragon Claw / Roar
---
Dialga @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 6 Atk/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Hasty nature (+Spd, -Def)
- Draco Meteor
- Thunder
- Flamethrower
- Outrage
---
Also,


Mewtwo @ Light Clay
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP/6 Atk/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Reflect
- Light Screen
- Taunt
- Selfdestruct
---
is a staple of Baton Pass (Support Based) teams for its ability to shut down a stall team with Taunt and renew a sweep in mid-match. On the team I'm building to test Ninjask, I'm definitely trying it out.
 

Jibaku

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On stall I would prefer to lead with Groudon, because it instantly sets up weather and is generally a lot safer than Forretress. Forretress will only prevent entry hazards from Deoxys-S, a few Deoxys-A, and some Groudon leads. Dialga will just roast you, Kyogre will severely hurt you with Surf/whatever it is up to (at least Groudon can help figure out what set it's running based on the weather). Darkrai can get off an instant Nasty Plot and conserve Dark Void for later, which can be devastating especially to stall, some Groudons can Flamethrower Forretress (courtesy of twash >=( ) for the instant kill so it's a huge gamble. Certain variants of Deoxys-A will simply Fire Punch Forretress for the kill. IMO it's generally not worth it, especially if they have a Ho-oh and your Forry doesn't have rocks, but if you're the gambler type then eh, go ahead.



Baton Pass Teams are extremely hard to take down, but after playing them a lot I found the best way to deal with it is to analyze the structure of the team (based on the mons and moves shown thus far), and predict when Mew will come out (which will usually be after the screens are placed to ensure maximum time) and stop it. Faster Taunt users can negate Mew and destroy the whole set up, Choice Specs Kyogre can 2HKO Mew handily under the screens, Ho-oh can 2HKO with Life Orbed Sacred Fire in the sun, or Whirlwind Mew away when it is least expected. A faster Giratina-O with Shadow Ball and Calm Mind can 2HKO Mew after Shadow Ball (and is also capable of setting up on Bronzong as it sets up Screens). If Mew doesn't Taunt and makes a successful pass, you can continue using Substitute to stall out the screens and hopefully KO the recipient.

After the opponent has put up screens, they will usually either Memento or kaboom. You can send in a Taunter on the Memento while a death fodder can be used to take the Explosion so that your "Mew counter" can be brought out safely. Watch out if the opponent anticipates this, however.
 
So I always play Offense in Uber Tier. Maybe Heavy Offense could be nice. To play Stall in Uber is imo realy hard and you have to have much experience in Uber and how to play the metagame.

Baton Pass I had never tested before but it seems to be good (also I've never played Mew in Uber^^).
 
i am not sure but isnt a choice specs gengar the best pokemon against baton pass teams - it can only be taken out by sweepers, and they are really shitty on their own, so you dont even have to be a good predictor, and a choice scarf deoxys-s (not sure if scarf mewtwo can outspeed mew after rp) can use taunt and shut it down.
 
I almost always play some sort of offense. Stall is just too prone to random crits and negative hax in general, so I find it somewhat unreliable in that you never know when a perfectly good game gets ruined by your Kyogre counter getting ko'd. Of course, good stall teams are built to work around that, but I guess I'm not good enough at stall for that.
 
I almost always play some sort of offense. Stall is just too prone to random crits and negative hax in general, so I find it somewhat unreliable in that you never know when a perfectly good game gets ruined by your Kyogre counter getting ko'd. Of course, good stall teams are built to work around that, but I guess I'm not good enough at stall for that.

Actually, Baton pass is also prone to fall to a random critical as well, if Mew happens to be critted, the entire chain is basically done. Prediction is crucial for the offense trying to break it, otherwise Stall can life orb stall mixed attackers, and Giratina-O's lower attack stats means it must predict correctly, otherwise stall will laugh at it.
 
I almost always play some sort of offense. Stall is just too prone to random crits and negative hax in general, so I find it somewhat unreliable in that you never know when a perfectly good game gets ruined by your Kyogre counter getting ko'd. Of course, good stall teams are built to work around that, but I guess I'm not good enough at stall for that.
I think offense is prone tp random crits and negative hax - stall has less speed ties, and hasn`t got those moves like focus blast im talking about 70-80% accuracy, what makes it more reliable IMO.
 
When I play, I almost never get speed ties, because I ensure that I never come across that problem. Also, with fast, often frail sweepers, taking a hit practically ensures death, so a crit doesn't really matter that much. I only use 85+ accuracy moves (Fire Blast being the 85) and thus, hax is generally a small part of my games.
 
I almost always play some sort of offense. Stall is just too prone to random crits and negative hax in general, so I find it somewhat unreliable in that you never know when a perfectly good game gets ruined by your Kyogre counter getting ko'd. Of course, good stall teams are built to work around that, but I guess I'm not good enough at stall for that.
You raise a good point. Stall in Ubers really suffers if you don't have somewhat redundant walls, because since there is stuff like Wobbuffet, not to forget the inherent versatility of many Ubers, you need to be able to stop any and all threats from sweeping through your team.

A good example of this is dealing with multiple Calm Mind users. Sure, Blissey is your primary switch-in. But what if Blissey goes down to a surprise Waterfall from a MixOgre (this has happened!) or to a mispredict against Palkia/Dialga or is Taunted/Encored by Mewtwo/Wobbuffet? For this reason, I keep a Scarf Dialga with Outrage to ensure that something like Latios/Kyogre/Giratina-O doesn't come and rape me up the ass. In general, scarfers are a great way of providing a redundant check against enemy offensive teams.

I think we need to talk more about the specifics of stall vs. stall play in Ubers, especially since stall is once again rising in player preferences, (almost every other team has Forry/Bliss/Gira-O). For some reason, I have yet to beat a stall team controlled by a good player with my own stall team (well, the only good stall players I've played so far were Jiba and Gen). So it might help if we had a small note on the principles of stall v. stall for the younger citizens of our community.

Here's what I found out the hard way so far. As in OU, Stall versus stall usually comes down to who can block spinning and layering the best.

-If using Giratina, be very careful against blocking Forry's Rapid Spin. Stay in too long, and you're giving it free layers.
-If using Giratina-O without HP Fire, don't be too brazen in coming in on Forry because of Payback.
-Giratina guarantees that Forry won't be spinning, but Giratina-O ensures that it won't be extensively layering.
-With your scarfer, try to be unpredictable to make sure you catch Forry. Garchomp (Fire Fang) is great at this.

That's unfortunately all I have. Perhaps one of our more senior members can share his wisdom.
 

bojangles

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Another type of stall that is incredibly potent is QuickStall. Possibly one of the most successful teams I made was of this type (i believe that it was undefeated). Lots of QuickStall teams rely on Pokémon who aren't generally seen on "true stall teams". For example, the backbone of my team was the evil trio of SubSeed Shaymin-S, Wobbuffet, and Stalling Mewtwo (by far the MVP imo).

Mewtwo @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP/92 Spd/160 SDef
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Light Screen
- Recover
- Taunt
- Will-o-wisp

I can't take credit for this set, but its truly a stalling machine. Although it has no attacking moves, I've had matches were it just ripped apart the opponent's team. I believe supermarth64 will remember a match we had where it literally stalled out his Forretress, Giratina-O, Palkia, and Wobbuffet. Light Screen boosts Mewtwo's Special Defense, while Will-O-Wisp cuts your opponent's attack, effectively boosting Mewtwo's defense (it also slowly whittles away at your opponent's health). Taunt stops your opponent from healing or boosting its stats, making it attack Mewtwo with its weakened attacks, while Recover is there for obvious purposes.

This is a great example of how versatile even a whole playstyle can be in Ubers. Within stall we have not only classic stall, but also modern stall and QuickStall. You can find another great example of this type in Theorymon's SubSeed Machine gun team.
 

Fireburn

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Mewtwo @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP/92 Spd/160 SDef
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Light Screen
- Recover
- Taunt
- Will-o-wisp
I can attest to this set's power, when played right it can easily stall out 3 or 4 Pokemon. I agree that Quickstall is really annoying when played right, and its a pretty underrated playing style.
 

supermarth64

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I believe supermarth64 will remember a match we had where it literally stalled out his Forretress, Giratina-O, Palkia, and Wobbuffet.
Hi I'm here.

Yea that Mewtwo was a bitch. I could've beat it with Tina-O but I was running Aura Sphere > Shadow Ball because I was afraid of Lucario.
 
I know that mewtwo is hard to take down when you are unprepared, but on the other side a Ho-oh can render it useless.
 

locopoke

Banned deucer.
Lucario isn't that common, I rather cover Mewtwo than Lucario.

Honestly though it depends on the team. I run Stone Edge on Gira-o because Ho-oh gives me a lot of trouble, that doesn't mean that that should apply for everybody, in most cases for mixed Gira-o EQ is the better option. If his team gets destroyed by Lucario every time then it's best for him to be using Aura Sphere, it's not good when a team always loses to a certain Pokemon. That weakness should always be taken care of as soon as possible. Defensive Mewtwo is less common than Lucario anyway...
 

supermarth64

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It was about a month after that Lucario craze started up, so there were plenty of Lucario. However, I hadn't touched that team in a while, so I just freshly loaded it up.
 

Myzozoa

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I play a lot of ubers and I don't see lucario very often, almost never tbh. I would rather cover kyogre (than mewtwo or lucario) with giratina-o using thunder. dragon/ghost+electric is perfect coverage and giratina-o is a decent kyogre check if not the best. mewtwo doesn't come in on giratina-0 very often anyway. If i'm running max speed then I will always run dragon pulse to get adamant sd quaza.
 
So if I just wanna test the waters of ubers, would I use stall? And from there try offense? Or am I completely wrong?
 
So if I just wanna test the waters of ubers, would I use stall? And from there try offense? Or am I completely wrong?
Xaqwais, if you're new to ubers I would recommend you run a bulky offense team to get a feel for the major threats and the flow of battle, since they're the easiest to make. Theorymon's "Turnabout Ubers" team is a good example of bulky offense for this tier, though it's somewhat outdated by now. Once you have some laddering experience, hyper offense and full stall are two other good options as far as types of teams to use. Other, less common types of teams out there are Baton Pass, "quick stall," and balanced, although they're harder to make if you don't know Ubers very well. Hope I helped!
 
Yeah, Turnabout Ubers is a pretty good example of offense. Also, try out the starter team in the Ubers Battling Guide for a good example of a balanced team that will teach you how to attack and how to defend. After that, experiment with Classical Stall and Hyperoffense (which IMO requires a bit of definition), before moving into stuff like Modern Stall, Quick Stall and Support-Oriented teams. Although Modern Stall is so popular on the ladder after Jibaku's team.

I was also wondering if anyone had specific tips and guidelines for stall v. stall play, because that is one part of the game I suffer at, as Gen can attest. Aside from that, I was wondering about specific differences between Hyperoffense and Bulkyoffense in Ubers. The difference there is less clear cut than it is in OU.
 
I play both stall and hyper offense, so I think I can help you out here mtr.

Stall v. stall doesn't usually come down to a hazards war as you might think it does; instead, the person who wins the battle is usually the one who wins the matchup of "wild cards." The typical stall team will have either one or two Pokémon that are put in to fill in the gaps, so to speak, and oftentimes these Pokémon will tend to do well against stall as well. I'm talking about defensive Mewtwo, offensive Ho-oh, CM+Refresh Lati@s, CM+Rest Kyogre, etc. If you can take advantage of your "wild card" (or two!) and use it to go on the offensive against the opposing stall team, that can give you the edge that will let you weaken their core to create a favorable endgame matchup. This is one of the reasons why Ho-oh is becoming so popular on stall teams: not only does it patch up several important weaknesses that tend to plague BlissForreyTinaGroudon, but it does great against opposing stall teams as well.

Hyper offense vs. bulky offense is really a distinction of how you check the opposing team's threats. Bulky offense will use Choice Scarfers, RestTalkers, and "supporting" Pokémon in order to remain on track to win even when you don't have the momentum. Hyper offense strives to make it impossible for your opponent to gain momentum in the first place, rendering these types of Pokémon unnecessary and allowing you to cram in stat-up sweepers to your heart's content. In short, bulky offense is centered around attempting to sweep whenever possible while checking your opponent's sweepers when you're unable to do so, while hyper offense is centered around all sweeping, all the time with no room for your opponent to do anything other than respond to your attacks.
 
@Deep Thought

Thanks. This also explains why I had bad vibes about using Garchomp as my scarfer to check threats: it really hurts me against stall, since using Garchomp is practically begging Forry to enter the field (barring the use of the risky Earthquake/Fire Fang). Since Dialga has mixed capabilities, it can at least give trouble to Bliss, Forry, Don, and Tina. This also explains why Ubers players aren't as hesitant about having stall teams without spinners as OU players are. I guess my perception of Ubers, once again, was colored by the fact that I come from OU.
 
Hyper/Heavy Offense is a style of offense where there is a complete emphasis put on having the higher speed and/or attacking stats, which allows the game to be completely devoid of offensive prediction, and also very little defensive prediction. You simply attack until you die, and then bring in the next attacker. This ensure that nothing sets up on you as you try to switch out. Since you are sacrificing anything you bring in, it is necessary to have a lot of longterm planning skills and be able to formulate a new plan if something goes wrong. There is also an emphasis on making sure that the entire team hits from one side of the spectrum, or at least has the same set up counters. The idea is that the first few pokes can wear down the counters and this allows the other members to sweep. The easiest way to break through counters is with statup moves, so setuppers are generally the pokes you will find on HO. Also, because it is necessary to know what your opponent's counters are and figuring out a winning strategy based on this, having information about your opponent's team is crucial.

In OU, teams have a lot of problems with "random scarfers," but Uber HO has no such problem, as any scarfer can be promptly trapped and revenged by wobbuffet.

always follows this format:

1. Lead: Usually some form of deoxys. I have been testing giratina for my special team, but in general deoxys s or f is the standard. using s or f is a matter of preference. s will be able to put down more hazards, but has to deal with speed ties and tons of hate. Deoxys f will often allow you to start the game up rather than down and will often take out a counter for something else, but will provide fewer hazards and still has a rather interesting matchup against deoxys s. If they have extremespeed, then you will lose. If they lack it, you win. Deoxys F also has the advantage of being slow enough to be outsped by scarfers 0.o Yeah I know, but this give you information, and allows you to be certain that certain things are scarved, meaning you can bring in wob right away instead of losing wob/ a sweeper due to an unconfirmed item. Dual-Screen leads also work. Something like DS Mewtwo or DS Deoxys S is fine, but these leads tend to have problems. They either lack sr or a fast taunt, and both are important. Only Deoxys S has it all, but he isn't really that bulky.

2 Wobbuffet: Yeah, ever HO team needs this. sets things up, safeguards, and destroys scarfers that the team desperately needs to get rid of.

3,4,5: Standard set-up sweepers that all hit from the same side of the spectrum. Generally RP Groudon/ SD/DD Rayquaza/ SD Lucario are necessary for physical, while the necessary pokes for are special are any form of CM Kyogre and NP Darkrai. There is a lot of freedom for special team as there are so many pokes to choose from.

6: Your Choice: some good stuff for physical HO would be SD Scizor, DD Tyranitar, SD Garchomp, or DD Salamence. For Special, CM Mewtwo, CM Latios, and CM Giratina are all fine choices. Both sides can also put a non-setup sweeper here if they feel inclined to. This could come in the form of a bander, specser, or a LO or mixed attacker possibly, similar to the Specs Jolt in Stathakis' Greek RMT. Mixed Dialga, Mixed Palkia, or SubSeed Shaymin could all work here. Whatever you end up choosing, the poke should wear down the same counters as the 3,4, and 5 so that one of these guys can tear through the rest of the team.

Things that are never present in HO:

1 Scarfers: having scarfers will kill you because they allow the opponent time to set up. People seem to think it is necessary to have ways of revenge killing other setup sweepers, but I assure you it is not necessary. The sweepers on a HO team can 2hko at worst most things in the game that boost their speed, meaning they will never have the opportunity to set up, which means you are wasting a team slot by using a scarfer, especially since the scarfer will usually just get wobbed anyway. Wob is something that most HO teams can completely destroy, so you are not only wasting a poke on your team, you are also giving your opponent another relevent poke. Specs and Bands are also generally to be avoided but last-poke banders and specs users are acceptable if the added power is necessary for certain kos and you can ensure that any resists to the choiced move can be kod beforehand.

2 Things attacking from opposite sides of the spectrum: The purpose of having similar counters is to ensure that few pokes on the opponent's team are relevent, and attacking from both the physical or special side simply gives things on your opponent's team more relevent.

Heavy Offense is quite distinct from other styles of offense, as most standard offensive teams use a diverse set of pokes, often choiced, that each have different counters and fill different roles. On a standard team, having a scarf Chomp and a Specs Ogre on the same team is common, and would not be considered wrong, since they have good defensive synergy (allowing you to switch between them), and check certain threats as well as fill do different things. In Heavy Offense, this combination would be ridiculous, since the have no offensive synergy and are choiced. Choicers give your opponent's pokes more relevence, and eases pressure on your opponent when they switch to the resist. Pressure can never be taken off the opponent. They must always be responding to you, which means that their strategy will never be implemented.

Hope this helped :D
 

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