What items do you use to get around Item Clause?

Theorymon

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So a little preface: it breaks my heart to see the Battle Spot Forum so inactive. I think we should start having some more "small talk" kind of topics, not everything needs to be a mega thread or project!

So here's a common conundrum we face: Item Clause. Unlike Smogon's metagames, Gamefreak tends to embrace the item clause, meaning we can't have multiples of the same item.

So let's discuss this key difference. What items do you wish you could use multiples of? And to get around this, what items do you often use as a substitute?

You can be more general if you want, but I encourage you post specific examples, especially if they're unusual. Let's get started with an example! Also, this is for all Battle Spot metagames, not just singles!



Mamoswine @ Expert Belt

I happen to be a fan of Life Orb Mamoswine. Pulling stunts like OHKOing Mega Salamence after Stealth Rock is pretty neat imo! However, admittedly, I'm a bit of a life orb aholic, which means sometimes I just can't fit it in. I've found Expert Belt to be a fairly acceptable replacement. It still OHKOs Mega Salamence after Stealth Rock with Ice Shard, and you still OHKO Mega Mawile assuming no Intimidate too! Not getting chipped off by Life Orb is also nice, since Mamoswine is bulkier than people think.
 

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EXPERT BELT IS THE BEST ITEM

But actually Expert Belt is probably my most used item to get around item clause since Life Orb is really the only item I commonly find I want more than one of on a team. This comes up on almost every VGC team I make in particular, Rotom-H being the one with Expert Belt on my VGC15/BSD team because LO Hydreigon is the best Hydreigon. Hydregion prefers the Life Orb because killing things is good and isn't usually hitting things for SE damage whereas Rotom-H has great SE coverage with Overheat/Thunderbolt/HP Ice, and since Rotom-H can bluff a bulkier set it can surprise stuff like Mega Salamence who think you're just going to burn them (Mence shifted to mixed later in VGC15 so it didn't mind burns as much). In VGC16 I obviously abuse Rayquaza teams and LO Mega Rayquaza is pretty much the best thing ever so nothing else ever gets LO because that's basically the Mega Stone if we're being honest. I've used Expert Belt on a few things like Greninja (who's not actually bad in VGC16 imo) and it's really nice. Don't think I commonly use Expert Belt in Singles though. Specifically, these are some of the more recent sets I've used for BSD and VGC16 respectively.




Overload (Rotom-Heat) @ Expert Belt
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 124 HP / 252 SpA / 132 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 28 Def
- Overheat
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Protect



Illusion Step (Greninja) @ Expert Belt
Ability: Protean
Level: 50
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Ice Beam
- Gunk Shot
- Protect
- Grass Knot
 
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DragonWhale

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Life Orb is really the only item I commonly find I want more than one of on a team.
In singles rocky helmet is a more common dilemma than LO. Common users being: CRESSELIA, Suicune, Serperior, Skarmory, Ferrothorn, Landorus, Gyarados, Slowbro, Zapdos, even Mamoswine is 13% and more than LO, Talonflame, Whimsicott. All of them are top 50 with usage greater than 10%. There were many others in top 50 that still had over 5% like Thundurus and Garchomp. Almost all teams have at least one user, and are required to change some sets on another Pokemon or sometimes use a completely different pokemon to overcome item clause.

Shoutouts to Mega Kangaskhan.
 

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The thing I find with Rocky Helmet though, is that while there are more common users of Rocky Helmet with sets dedicated solely to that item (obscure or no, hi Hydreigon) than those that primarily want Life Orb in Singles, I don't usually find that I have Pokemon contesting over which one should get the Rocky Helmet. At least when I make teams I usually fit in a Rocky Helmet user later in the teambuilding process when I realize I need another Kangaskhan check as opposed to having say both Landorus-T and Suicune and thinking "oh both of these want Rocky Helmet on my team." Maybe that's just the way I build things though, but honestly I don't find myself needing to avoid item clause that much in BSS regardless due to cool stuff like WP Aegislash who's one of few who actually use that item.

Like I said I don't think any of my Singles teams yet have had to resort to Expert Belt despite all of my doubles teams gravitating towards using it, usually it's something like Talonflame who has Sharp Beak and wouldn't want Expert Belt anyway.
 
I used to hate Item Clause, but I haven't had any problems with it recently. I also almost never use LO, and haven't used Expert Belt even once, interestingly enough. Rocky Helmet and Leftovers were the only ones I ever wanted more than one of. I used to always want to use several things that really benefit from one or the other, like Cress, Mandibuzz, and Ferro(this is just for singles mind you.)

Sitrus Berry is a common replacement for Leftovers. Outside of a few mons like Azumarill, Sitrus is never preferred in
Singles to Lefties, unless something else is using them. That's why Thundy runs Sitrus so much. It'd prefer Lefties, but there's often another, better, user so it doesn't get them. I'd say Helmet and Lefties can be substitutes for each other, since pretty much every Poke that likes one also likes the other. A replacement for either can also sometimes be Chesto Berry, like with Suicune which likes both Helmet and Lefties, but is also really good with a Chesto Berry since it can Rest without having to run Sleep Talk or be useless for two turns.
 
Ah how I adore Expert Belt Rotom-H. Has been immaculate.

This is something of a team-specific set, but has been a great drag-and-drop mon in general; honestly it's been highly successful in Doubles.

Azumarill @ Mystic Water
Adamant, 212 HP, 252 Atk, 44 Speed
Ability: Huge Power

- Waterfall
- Protect
- Aqua Jet
- Play Rough

Water + Fairy alone is great coverage, hitting all but Amoonguss/Venusaur and other oddballs like Empoleon very hard. I ran Belly Drum previously, and even with Amoonguss it was fucking trash.
Anyway, I often found that running a single Water move was detrimental: unboosted Aqua Jet fails to OHKO any remotely viable Fire / Rock / Ground type and has a poor list of neutral 2HKOs. Waterfall has a good punch, KOing what you want to kill, but without Priority Azumarill can often find its Speed to be its own downfall. Running Waterfall + Aqua Jet allieviates the faults of both, and gets a lot of KOs as a 1-2 punch with Mystic Water. Play Rough is used only againt Dragons and opposing Water types really, since Waterfall now has greater power plus an accuracy bonus.
Speed is such an obscure benchmark that I'd damn near hug someone if they guessed it.
Pairs well with Expert Belt Rotom-H too btw, can confirm.

My other item-clause exploits include, but are not limited to:

- Charcoal Flash Fire Arcanine (Flare Blitz + Heat Wave)
- Charcoal Flash Fire Typhlosion (Might as well, not like it learns non-Fre type moves)
- Expert Belt Mesprit (Psychic / Ice Beam / Thunderbolt, actually worked very nice in Gen 5)
- Flame Orb Conkeldurr (Gliscor had the Toxic Orb; I've explained before but Toxic > Burn for doubles and 'hit and run' sets)
- Magnet Lanturn (Soak makes Expert Belt moot)
- Shell Bell U-Turn+Super Fang Noivern (Yes, it was just as bad as it sounds)
 
The only time I felt limited by the Item Clause was when I wanted a Bisharp on my team, which makes use of Life Orb with powerful Knock Offs and Sucker Punches. I got around that limitation by not using Bisharp because it just isn't amazing enough to warrant using a less powerful item on another (better) Pokémon. That bothered me a little because I like to use uncommon Pokémon (and am okay with losing due to that), but I just couldn't justify using Bisharp after considering all of the items on my team.

I see Talonflame as the king of getting around the item clause. While Garchomp has many different options for items, Focus Sash, Choice Band, Lum Berry, etc. are all different. With Talonflame Life Orb, Sharp Beak and Sky Plate are all pretty much the same. Together Sharp Beak and Sky Plate are the fourth most common item for Talonflame with 14.6% usage. And it also makes great use of Choice Band and Rocky Helmet, so you can pretty much always find a good item for it without hurting your other Pokémon too much. In my opinion that's a great quality to have in this meta.
 
I actually usually look for alternative sets to run. On one my recent teams I wanted to use Sylveon and Rotom-W and I wanted specs on both. I ended up trying CM chesto on sylveon instead and that worked out well for the team.

Sitrus Berry is a common replacement for Leftovers. Outside of a few mons like Azumarill, Sitrus is never preferred in
Singles to Lefties, unless something else is using them. That's why Thundy runs Sitrus so much. It'd prefer Lefties, but there's often another, better, user so it doesn't get them. I'd say Helmet and Lefties can be substitutes for each other, since pretty much every Poke that likes one also likes the other. A replacement for either can also sometimes be Chesto Berry, like with Suicune which likes both Helmet and Lefties, but is also really good with a Chesto Berry since it can Rest without having to run Sleep Talk or be useless for two turns.
I actually think Sitrus is normally better, lefties IMO is only better on things like ferro that uses seeds to gain a lot of recovery back, and anything using sub/protect. I think sitrus is better cause you get a nice amount of recovery and it turns many 2hkos to 3hkos. In 3v3 sometimes the games are quick and lefties won't always make a huge impact(because the advantage of lefties is best over multiple turns), whereas with sitrus you're almost always getting that immediate impact. And especially with stuff that doesn't have amazing bulk like Thund and Rotom, it's really good and that's why they both commonly use it i think. Also it's sick vs Kanga cause of how it works against Parental Bond.
 
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The only time I felt limited by the Item Clause was when I wanted a Bisharp on my team, which makes use of Life Orb with powerful Knock Offs and Sucker Punches. I got around that limitation by not using Bisharp because it just isn't amazing enough to warrant using a less powerful item on another (better) Pokémon. That bothered me a little because I like to use uncommon Pokémon (and am okay with losing due to that), but I just couldn't justify using Bisharp after considering all of the items on my team.
Blackglasses. Same concept as my Azumarill: solid relaible boost on the moves you are spamming 80% of the time. Yveltal also does this in VGC16, to allow a Life Orb user on the same team.
 
For me, the item clause has never really been a problem. I am actually quite surprised that some of you have faced this problem but I guess that is probably because of different play styles, strategies etc.
 
I actually think Sitrus is normally better, lefties IMO is only better on things like ferro that uses seeds to gain a lot of recovery back, and anything using sub/protect. I think sitrus is better cause you get a nice amount of recovery and it turns many 2hkos to 3hkos. In 3v3 sometimes the games are quick and lefties won't always make a huge impact(because the advantage of lefties is best over multiple turns), whereas with sitrus you're almost always getting that immediate impact. And especially with stuff that doesn't have amazing bulk like Thund and Rotom, it's really good and that's why they both commonly use it i think. Also it's sick vs Kanga cause of how it works against Parental Bond.
Maybe. I like Leftovers better, I use them on Thundurus since none of my other Pokes want to use them, and Swagger and T-Wave generate free turns for Lefties recovery. That said I can understand why so many run Sitrus, as that big boost inHP after they get knocked down to orange health is 4 turns of Lefties at once. Definitely Sitrus over Lefties on anything that wants some recovery but doesn't have any way to either avoid an attack with Protect, heal itself with a move, keep the foe from moving, or reduce the damage the foe deals. Ofc, most of the stuff that meets all those criteria, and lots of the stuff that doesn't, would prefer an offensive item.
 
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cant say

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Yeah but they're still different uses. Just like you said, SwagPlay generates several free turns so Leftovers is better in the long run. Sitrus Berry is much better on traditional sets so that Thundurus can actually counter Talonflame.

I have to agree that Sitrus Berry is really tricky to allocate as there are so many things that can use it well. I used to use BellyJet Azumarill a lot and always hated the Item Clause because of it. Focus Sash is another thing that I wish I had more of when making super offensive teams. Apart from that though the item clause doesn't really bother me, probably because I've been playing Frontier, GBU, Subway, Maison, and BSS for a long time now. Item Clause can work the same way for you in that running 2-3 potential megas can keep your opponent guessing which is which, so I like that I can use that to my advantage and try to surprise my opponents by running different things.
 

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Yeah but they're still different uses. Just like you said, SwagPlay generates several free turns so Leftovers is better in the long run. Sitrus Berry is much better on traditional sets so that Thundurus can actually counter Talonflame.

I have to agree that Sitrus Berry is really tricky to allocate as there are so many things that can use it well. I used to use BellyJet Azumarill a lot and always hated the Item Clause because of it. Focus Sash is another thing that I wish I had more of when making super offensive teams. Apart from that though the item clause doesn't really bother me, probably because I've been playing Frontier, GBU, Subway, Maison, and BSS for a long time now. Item Clause can work the same way for you in that running 2-3 potential megas can keep your opponent guessing which is which, so I like that I can use that to my advantage and try to surprise my opponents by running different things.
Pretty much the same--Item Clause hasn't really been much of a thing for me, although part of what made it a non-issue for me was playing PWT so much.

I personally rotate between Wise Glasses, Muscle Band, and Sitrus Berry. If I'm having enough issues to warrant using either of the first two when teambuilding, then I'm not taking the competition I'm in all that seriously anyway. The latter is a different story--when I first starting contemplating this "Subway/Maison vs. the Greater Metagame" business, creating a "Citrus Gang" of all of the battle facilities' Sitrus users, to be used to plug into pretty much any situation, was my big idea. I even started looking into adding the Frontier's Sitrus users, too. To this day, it's practically a requirement item when I'm roaming the wilds of Battle Spot.
 
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As my team has running sand AND hail, my unaware clefable is often in the situation of getting chip damage because of it. I run safety goggles as protection for that damage, which is essentialy the same as leftovers (the same damage from hail and sand is prevented as the hp you get from leftovers).

Apart from that, safety goggles gives an immunity to spore which makes clefable a really good breloom/liepard lure.

And at last, people can get confused about the ability of clefable because they expect magic guard because of the absence of weather damage and sometimes set up, for example swords dance garchomp. Those are wasted moves of my opponent too.

For other items, For some pokemon assaultvest can be a substitute for a choice item, as it gives the same restrictions movewise but gives a special defense bonus instead of the other bonus, which can be better in certain situations (frail fast special attackers who would be koed anyways but with assaultvest you get less damage now).
 
As my team has running sand AND hail, my unaware clefable is often in the situation of getting chip damage because of it. I run safety goggles as protection for that damage, which is essentialy the same as leftovers (the same damage from hail and sand is prevented as the hp you get from leftovers).

Apart from that, safety goggles gives an immunity to spore which makes clefable a really good breloom/liepard lure.

And at last, people can get confused about the ability of clefable because they expect magic guard because of the absence of weather damage and sometimes set up, for example swords dance garchomp. Those are wasted moves of my opponent too.

For other items, For some pokemon assaultvest can be a substitute for a choice item, as it gives the same restrictions movewise but gives a special defense bonus instead of the other bonus, which can be better in certain situations (frail fast special attackers who would be koed anyways but with assaultvest you get less damage now).
Why are you running 2 weathers? I like the addition of Safety Goggles, but hail AND sand seems pretty excessive.
 
Why are you running 2 weathers? I like the addition of Safety Goggles, but hail AND sand seems pretty excessive.
Well its not really on purpose, it was just that i used a hippowdon who had sand stream as ability and that i wanted to use avalugg as second physical wall for other typing and i gave it ice body and hail to survive more stuff.
Maybe i need a better team though xd

To stay on topic, air balloon is a great item to put on anything thats weak to ground, and if you put it on excadrill it has essentialy three immunities: electric poison and ground.
 
Honestly, I don't think I've ever run into the problem if using a completely different item just to get around item clause. At least not on my really good teams. Usually when I put myself in that mentality, I use something gimmicky like Quick Claw or Bright Powder. That's pretty bad =(. So no, in general, I don't use any items to get around Item Clause, because I use good items.
 

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