Format Discussion Pokemon Sun/Moon Random Battle sets

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Maybe I don't get it, but what is the Easter Egg behind that? Because if I have to use it in a random battle, it's no longer an easter egg to me (I just want to win lol)
The joke is that fan Rotom's ability is redundant. There are only two Pokemon with abilities that grant immunities that are already granted by the ability wielder's types, and fan Rotom is one of them. If you just want to win, then you have no sense of humor.
By the way, we really should have Stunfisks with limber and cheri berries.
 
The joke is that fan Rotom's ability is redundant. There are only two Pokemon with abilities that grant immunities that are already granted by the ability wielder's types, and fan Rotom is one of them. If you just want to win, then you have no sense of humor.
By the way, we really should have Stunfisks with limber and cheri berries.
Thanks for the answer. Although I do believe I have a sense of humor (I just think Easter Eggs stop being an easter egg once it actually has a purpose in terms of performance)
 
Spore is far from mandatory on breloom: if you look at its analysis, you'll see that it isn't even the first slash.
I don't think that's Breloom's best set. This is from the usage stats from OU's high ladder.
+--------+
| Moves |
| Mach Punch 94.290% |
| Bullet Seed 93.595% |
| Spore 84.103% |
| Swords Dance 67.456% |
| Rock Tomb 26.811% |
| Focus Punch 9.701% |
| Stone Edge 7.051% |
| Other 16.992% |
+------------------+
As you can see, spore is used more than swords dance, rock tomb, and stone edge. I think that means Breloom with spore has a bigger niche than the moveset on your post. Additionally, Breloom without spore is basically a worse Virizion, so it should come at a higher level in order to be fair.
 

Adeleine

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Random Battles don't give you the guaranteed best sets, they give you viable sets; also, the threat of Spore is a weapon in itself even if you don't have it, and not having it gives you more moveset freedom for things like Rock Tomb on Flying switchins. Likening Breloom to a far weaker Pokemon lacking priority isn't the best comparison. Overall, please only post bad sets on this thread, as opposed to "not-best" sets.

What is NOT OK to post?
Screenshot of movesets that are not actually bad.
KEEP IN MIND THAT
It's random battle, something should be random. We are not looking for one single viable set. If you wanna play that way, play Battle Factory. (this isn't exactly applicable but you get the jist)
 

I think rock slide is pretty pointless on this set because the only combination it helps to cover is flying psychic. I'd much rather have sludge wave or calm mind. At least sludge wave is still strong when used with a timid nature.
 

I think rock slide is pretty pointless on this set because the only combination it helps to cover is flying psychic. I'd much rather have sludge wave or calm mind. At least sludge wave is still strong when used with a timid nature.
Rock Slide hits Mantine and other special walls such as Zapdos, hooh, etc very hard, while using landorus' higher attack stat. Its been a staple on Landorus-I in literally every metagame its viable it (except BW where sand force meant it ran stone edge in singles), and is second only to earth power in importance in many metagames.
E: even with a timid nature rock slide is plenty strong.
 
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Had an Arceus-Dragon set with the following:
Calm Mind
Fire Blast
Outrage
Earthquake

(DRAGONIUM-Z)

two physical moves on a calm mind set just make this SD
 
Was playing mono randbats, and this happened:
upload_2017-5-30_16-34-56.png

There's no reason to ever use iron head on magearna, especially since this is AV instead of shift gear.
 
I received a Victreebel with GLUTTONY and BLACK SLUDGE

It immediately had an effect as Primal Groudon was able to outspeed it due to lack of Chlorophyll and get up rocks.
 

Adeleine

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I received a Victreebel with GLUTTONY and BLACK SLUDGE

It immediately had an effect as Primal Groudon was able to outspeed it due to lack of Chlorophyll and get up rocks.
This seems more like you being strikingly unlucky than getting a bad set; neither ability normally has a benefit without a specific accompanying detail (the move Sunny Day and a relevant Berry, respectively), and you got neither detail, so it randomly picked. The problem was that it picked Gluttony and you matched up against one of the 2 ½ (you outsped Torkoal anyways) Pokemon that trigger Chlorophyll...
 

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Why do Groudon and Kyogre sometimes come with leftovers when the orbs are almost always better?

What is NOT OK to post?
Screenshot of movesets that are not actually bad.
KEEP IN MIND THAT
It's random battle, something should be random. We are not looking for one single viable set. If you wanna play that way, play Battle Factory. (this isn't exactly applicable but you get the jist)
Stop doing this, this is your warning.
 
Some sets are particularly bad, not as sets but because of the random battle format.

For instance, anything which learns Stealth Rocks should have Stealth Rocks. Anything which learns Rapid Spin / Defog, should have Rapid Spin / Defog. Swords Dance sweeper Armaldo is probably great on an NU rain team with Damp Rock support, but serves as death fodder in any Random Battle it enters, whilst it could be one of the strongest mons, as hazards are more broken than in standard competitive (which says a lot).

On a more specific note, please fix Dugtrio-Alola. Focus Sash and Substitute shouldn't ever be on the same set, and 90% of the time it lacks either Iron Head or Earthquake, making it a complete waste of space whereas it could've been a faster Excadrill (on that note, I don't think I've seen one with Stone Edge, which is as good as Rock Slide is on Excadrill).
 

Adeleine

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Some sets are particularly bad, not as sets but because of the random battle format.

For instance, anything which learns Stealth Rocks should have Stealth Rocks. Anything which learns Rapid Spin / Defog, should have Rapid Spin / Defog. Swords Dance sweeper Armaldo is probably great on an NU rain team with Damp Rock support, but serves as death fodder in any Random Battle it enters, whilst it could be one of the strongest mons, as hazards are more broken than in standard competitive (which says a lot).

On a more specific note, please fix Dugtrio-Alola. Focus Sash and Substitute shouldn't ever be on the same set, and 90% of the time it lacks either Iron Head or Earthquake, making it a complete waste of space whereas it could've been a faster Excadrill (on that note, I don't think I've seen one with Stone Edge, which is as good as Rock Slide is on Excadrill).
Requiring all mons with hazards/hazards control to use then would probably fall under the gist of "not a single viable set" (and hazard control is great but situational) - but I agree with SD being bad on a slow mon with sketchy defensive typing like Armaldo. Moves determine items for randoms, so sash-sub is probably caused by a Reversal + Sub roll. Worth noting is that it's movepool is currently:
"earthquake", "ironhead", "substitute", "reversal", "stoneedge", "suckerpunch"
Maybe Reversal should be removed? It requires the most preparation/things that go right and can be redundant alongside the generally more useful Earthquake. Also, it's not like you're so crazy fast that you can't be revenge killed anyway. No reversal means no sashsub and more EQ/Iron Head rolls. It is worth pointing out that Stone Edge remains an option, though.
 
These sets are from Generation 2.

Octillery can learn plenty of good moves, so why does it know octazooka?

It's a setup attacker that knows rest, so why is leftovers better than mint berry?

Why does it know thunderbolt when its physical attack is obviously much stronger? Why does it know screech when it doesn't know any physical attacks? Why does it know psych up at all?
 
These sets are from Generation 2.

Octillery can learn plenty of good moves, so why does it know octazooka?

It's a setup attacker that knows rest, so why is leftovers better than mint berry?

Why does it know thunderbolt when its physical attack is obviously much stronger? Why does it know screech when it doesn't know any physical attacks? Why does it know psych up at all?
They're supposed to be random sets (like I would assume Quagsire has a chance to hold mint berry and you just didn't get the chance), they can't guarantee the single best set all the time. If it bothers you, then maybe you should play a more standard tier (OU, UU, whatever) and teambuild with non-Octazooka Octillery, physical Persian, etc (not trying to sound rude; random battles are just that - random)
 

Adeleine

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This thread is only for Sun/Moon Random Battle, the generation 2 set engine is not as sophisticated as the current version which likely explains the poor sets. It's very very rare for Leftovers to not be the best item in Gen. 2 however.
 
Re: Dugtrio, I'd argue Substitute is absurdly situational on a hyper offense mon that's immune to both T-wave and Toxic and is weak to Scald. It has decent resistances to boot, meaning most things won't bring it down to a sash. Both moves are kind of a waste. Though that leaves it with only four viable moves. Memento, Pursuit, Work Up would be its best options and could in theory make it function even without its (amazing) STABs.

Who knew defensive Dugtrio with no Arena Trap and a smaller movepool was situational.
 

Adeleine

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When using ADugtrio in rands myself I've found Sub useful not for defensive ability but for offensive ability: it lets you capitalize on forced switches/ weak fairies(etc.) to ease prediction and make you harder to switch in on / revenge kill; two hits off that good speed and okay offense or a guaranteed hit on a frail speedster make positive prospects. It should stay imo. Memento does sound fun (and useful) though.
 
Would it be so unreasonable as to code just a little bit more balance into randbats?

I don't want battle factory. Absolutely not. No thanks. Just simple things like:

- both teams are guaranteed one entry hazard
- The three fastest mons can not all be on the same team

etc.


Also, are there usage stats for randbats? I am more interested in win % obviously. Usage stats by themselves would be quite boring. However, having numbers that are correlated to how good a Pokemon is could go a long way in reducing the number of "lose at team preview" matches in randbats. If each Pokemon were to be given a number based on their win % (ie. Unown = 30, Sigilyph = 70, Kartana = 80, Guzzlord = 50, etc.), we could add a simple rule such as

- the difference between the "win % sum" of the two teams can not exceed 100.

thus preventing complete curbstomps.

Randbats is not completely random to begin with or else we would be including Pokemon like Metapod and Combusken (well, we already have Doublade). Coding these simple changes could go a long way towards increasing the enjoyability of the tier, which is an advantage that it has over "let's ban everything that can do decent damage" OU.
 

Adeleine

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Would it be so unreasonable as to code just a little bit more balance into randbats?

I don't want battle factory. Absolutely not. No thanks. Just simple things like:

- both teams are guaranteed one entry hazard
- The three fastest mons can not all be on the same team

etc.


Also, are there usage stats for randbats? I am more interested in win % obviously. Usage stats by themselves would be quite boring. However, having numbers that are correlated to how good a Pokemon is could go a long way in reducing the number of "lose at team preview" matches in randbats. If each Pokemon were to be given a number based on their win % (ie. Unown = 30, Sigilyph = 70, Kartana = 80, Guzzlord = 50, etc.), we could add a simple rule such as

- the difference between the "win % sum" of the two teams can not exceed 100.

thus preventing complete curbstomps.

Randbats is not completely random to begin with or else we would be including Pokemon like Metapod and Combusken (well, we already have Doublade). Coding these simple changes could go a long way towards increasing the enjoyability of the tier, which is an advantage that it has over "let's ban everything that can do decent damage" OU.
This will not happen in the conceivable future, for a few reasons. Firstly, they are in fact random in their selection, but just among Pokemon that aren't LC or NFE (to be clear, things like Doublade and Chansey aren't designated NFE because they had enough usage to make the cut for an actual tier, e.g. OU.). The fundamental purpose of randoms are to, well, be random. This obviously doesn't extend 100% to movepools, to prevent Confide Kartana and to make the format playable, but making Pokemon selection non-random removes the format's niche. These changes wouldn't make it Battle Factory, but it could bring the two close enough together that both are struggling to form identities. The point is that Randoms arent supposed to be balanced.

For more pragmatic concerns, this would strongly muddy the waters and make the desired changes very unclear. What difference to preventing access to the three fastest mons and the four fastest mons have? Xerneas can sweep teams on its own, even with terrible teammates: should we force opposing teams to have a steel type? Should we only do this for Geomancy sets? Would we have to ban Xerneas all together for balance? Ban geomancy? Force Sigilyph to be matched against a Dark-type? Force kartana to be matched against a pokemon with at least X speed and Y Special Attack? Your approach and restrictions on fact bring us much closer to "ban everything OU", which we expressly want to avoid. Such change would put an never-ending workload, make it hard to draw the line, and would require stats we don't currently collect (as far as I know). Even with those stats, there are bound to be inaccuracies, because for things not named Xerneas etc. success largely depends on your team and the opponent's.

As a concluding note, your suggestion doesn't seem to fit in the parameters of the OP, so please remember those.

What is OK to post?
Screenshots of bad movesets/items/abilities or an accurate description of the set.
Suggestion about adding new moves/items to the sets but supported by a good argumentation.
 
Regarding entry hazards, look at every mon that's mainly used for Defog / Rapid Spin. Now remove Defog / Rapid Spin and look how many tiers they'd drop.

Also, Defog / Rapid Spin is just one move on the set. There's still plenty of room for versatility.

Also, again, Stealth Rocks are more broken than normally because you often have 2-3 weaknesses on your team and it doesn't increase chances of getting hazards control (if anything, decreases it).

And I'd rather have hazard control in more matches where they're not useful, than not having them when they're useful. Like, if I don't have them because I didn't get a mon with Defog/RS, fair enough, it's random, if I don't have them because I got one but it doesn't have it, then that means half my team is useless because of one moveslot.
 
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