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Dewgong's niche is being a really good rental in stadium 2.
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Oct 2, 2022 07:19
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I will forever remember Dewgong for its single "GAAAAAAWWWWWNG" cry in Mewtwo Strikes Back. Also I think Lorelei's froze my Venusaur solid in my very first ever attempt at the Elite Four. That was the day I learned the hard way about keeping your team up to date instead of funneling all XP to a single 'mon
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Oct 2, 2022 07:29
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Faillen Angel posted:Dewgong is straight up one of the... least Pokemon of all time. All sorts of terrible Pokemon, you can see what they're supposed to do. Not Dewgong. It does nothing. It is nothing. It continues to be nothing. For every Gen 1 'mon who gets absurd nostalgia and love and ridiculous moves in future generations, there is Dewgong. You can only catch it after getting Surf, and it's not good enough to replace whatever Surfer helped you catch it. Then they did it again in Gen 2. DoubleNegative posted:That was the day I learned the hard way about keeping your team up to date instead of funneling all XP to a single 'mon I never learned that lesson because my Gyarados with Fire Blast could defeat every type of Pokemon except Electric, and no-one in the Elite Four uses those 
Chamale fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Oct 2, 2022 |
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Oct 2, 2022 08:05
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So, in a world that looks completely different from Gen 1... Let's Talk About VGC VGC, or the Pokémon Video Game Championships, is the official Pokémon format put forward by The Pokémon Company International. If you go to an official tournament with your Switch, this is the format you'll be playing. The VGC format is as follows: • Double battles. All Pokémon are set to Level 50. • Bring a team of six Pokémon. When the battle starts, you and your opponent see what you both have and you each pick four Pokémon to be your working team. Battle ends when one player's four Pokémon are knocked out. • No duplicate Pokémon or held items. • No Pokémon that aren't on the list of legal Pokémon. (This varies by year. There are some very interesting stories with this, but let's talk about the basics first.) The use of double battles means that the game is a lot more fast-paced. It's possible for both of a player's Pokémon to target one of the opponent's, which can do massive damage - if both attacks land. Speed is more important than ever to ensure you hit first, and ways to mitigate or redirect attacks are also important - you can switch to a Pokémon that resists what your opponents' Pokémon can do if you think the opponent will attack in a certain way, but what are your options if you're wrong? A side effect of this is almost every Pokémon carries Protect. The game is thus very strategic, yet fast-paced, focused around predicting what your opponent will do and countering it - because if things go wrong, the battle can end very quickly. I know all this because I suck at it. I was a VGC player for a little over 3 years, most active between 2014 and 2016. For those keeping track, that's the Pokémon X / Y and Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire era. Each year felt drastically different because of the list of allowed Pokémon. However, I think I'm going to cover each format in a separate post.
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Oct 2, 2022 10:38
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Dewgong's niche is being shaped like a friend.Quackles posted:Let's Talk About VGC 
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Oct 2, 2022 11:55
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It's also worth noting that in VGC (and just doubles but if we're talking doubles we're probably talking VGC), spread moves have their damage cut in exchange for hitting both opponents. Now this isn't going to leave you thinking "wow Kyogre's Water Spout sure is weak" but this does make some moves worse like Surf.
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Oct 2, 2022 13:35
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Also Surf hits your friends. So does Earthquake. It's pretty obvious but it's very awkward when the main games force you into a 2 on 2 match and you keep knocking out your NPC ally because it's faster to earthquake everyone than swap to a pokemon with a single-target attack.
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Oct 2, 2022 13:57
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Wait, those weren't last man standing free for alls?
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Oct 2, 2022 14:06
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Honestly stuff like that is what makes doubles fun, especially when you lean into it and intentionally hit your friends to trigger, say, steam engine or a weakness policy.
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Oct 2, 2022 16:41
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Does Surf now get the 25% reduction even though it hits your own side? In Gen 3, moves that hit both opponents do 50% less damage, but moves that hit the whole field do full damage. In Heartgold, I had an amazing opening with Lickilicky using Explosion while Ursaring used Protect.
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Oct 2, 2022 17:49
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I think so. I'm pretty sure the spread penalty has been reduced to 70% in more recent generations, at least, so Heat Wave is a mainstay of modern doubles.
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Oct 2, 2022 19:49
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Quackles posted:I was a VGC player for a little over 3 years, most active between 2014 and 2016. For those keeping track, that's the Pokémon X / Y and Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire era. Each year felt drastically different because of the list of allowed Pokémon. I'll come out of my corner of lurking to chime in mentioning I was a semi active player starting in Sword and Shield's Crown Tundra, and was keeping tabs on the formats since then. Sword and Shield in general was an excellent time to be a VGC player and I really wanna talk more about it now that the generation's coming to an end.
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Oct 2, 2022 20:08
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I last played competitively in Gen 6 (X/Y), and I loved Anything Goes. Just an absolute mess of weird, quirky strategies, and Mega Rayquaza as the horrifying threat that every team needed to counter. I ran Rayquaza, Mewtwo, Ho-oh, Primal Groudon, Primal Kyogre... and Smeargle. Smeargle was my opener with King's Shield, Spore, Ingrain, and Baton Pass, and his Moody ability would very often pass on ridiculous stats buffs to another member of the team.
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Oct 2, 2022 20:17
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 I put a lot of thought into it, and I think I've finally made an objectively correct RBY OU tier list.
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Oct 4, 2022 00:13
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You have to love a series with so many dudes that people start making nested tier lists. ... and they've added drat near 1000 more of them since these original entries
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Oct 4, 2022 01:20
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girl dick energy posted:
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Oct 4, 2022 02:01
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girl dick energy posted:
OK, this is a question that I've been thinking about since the thread started going over competitive pokemon in general I get that like any other competitive game, at high level there are going to be characters that no one uses because they are not viable. And with a roster of about 150, we've eliminated about 90% of said roster. That's OK, there are a lot of tier lists that end up with a good pool of maybe 6-10 cutting their roster down to about 1/2-1/3 But how does it stop from getting boring/repetitive when (presumably) you see the same dozen or so characters on everyone's team? Most likely we're looking at close to the same if not exactly the same move pools, because they are the most effective, or cover the most ground. Again, I'm guessing that there's no pre-game reveal as to what the other player is running on their team, but it's likely going to be 6 of these guys in some configuration or another. So there's a chance that two teams of the same setup and same order could go head to head, and then what? The differences come down to individual stats. If that is the case, does it make a big difference if one player's DEF is 97 vs the other guy's 96 DEF. Sure, a higher speed means that you attack first/faster and have a higher chance for crits, and that's not nothing, but how much does a 1 point difference like that make. Where does the excitement come in? I'm not saying these players aren't talented, but it feels like such a weird thing to watch. Kind of more like a chess match, where there are potentially thousands of moves and high level players have strategy and planning, but it tends to be slow. It's more move > Counter-move > counter-counter, but less planning 5 moves ahead. I can see casual play being more interesting for myself, because there's more opportunity for variety and seeing some weird things like training an obscure TM on a Farfetch'd or something. I'm genuinely asking, not trying to poo poo on someone's hobby.
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Oct 4, 2022 04:12
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CzarChasm posted:OK, this is a question that I've been thinking about since the thread started going over competitive pokemon in general It is a lot like a chess match, and that's the fun thing. It doesn't come down to individual stats, it comes down to strategic choices and sometimes random chance. Knowing which Pokemon are threats and how your opponent might use them leads to all kinds of play and counter-play. Also, that particular tier list was a joke.
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Oct 4, 2022 04:23
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So I'm far from the most competitive player around, but if I were to be asked this question...it'd have to be the variety in sets and the supporting cast in terms of the specifics of Gen 1. You're always going to have Tauros, Snorlax, and Chansey, but the sets can vary wildly, and the other three Pokemon that come along depending on what team you're running can also vary wildly. Tauros is always going to be running Body Slam/Hyper Beam, and is very likely to run Blizzard to catch the Ground types, but what its fourth moveslot is a mystery. Sometimes it could be Earthquake to catch Gengar, sometimes you want to hit Cloyster real bad since its one of the few "checks" Tauros has, or maybe Fire Blast to try and win the Tauros ditto? In Ubers, Tauros sometimes runs Stomp just for the extra flinch chance. And Tauros is probably the "least flexible". Snorlax and Chansey if I were to talk about the top three are actually more flexible depending on what you want to use them for. All out attacker Snorlax? Very reliable! A Rest variant? Snorlax has the bulk! Amnesia set? Can become unexpected and difficult to deal with! Chansey's most popular set is stall related thanks to Soft-Boiled and absurd HP, but you could easily run a slightly more offensive set and still do fine with its Special. Outside of the top 3, while there are some Pokemon very clearly better than others, there are unique niches for most of the usually rated Pokemon. Starmie, Alakazam and Exeggutor are very popular for being strong Psychic types, and Gengar being the only Ghost type gives it its own niche. Jynx might be slightly worse but Sleep will always give it a good lead role. Cloyster as aforementioned can act as a Thunderboltless Tauros check, and Pokemon like Articuno and Moltres hit stupidly hard. Dodrio hits hard with its STAB options and Dragonite is an rear end in a top hat. There's a fair chunk of other viable RBY choices in OU, and I haven't even gotten into the lower tiers where metagames are considerably different, but this should be a completely...basic look at how competitive can be different despite many Pokemon appearing frequently. As for stats...well Smogon is the most common way to run singles RBY OU, so there's always maxed out stats. Luck will always play a factor in a match, but it's usual the better player can play around the luck based elements. As for modern competitive (specifically VGC), people are obsessive/have learned how to RNG manipulate, so the same is applied there.
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Oct 4, 2022 04:37
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This is also why Snorlax isn’t banned from Gen 2 OU despite being the undisputed best Pokémon. It can do all sorts of crazy poo poo and beat almost anything if it has the right set, but it can’t do all of that at once and needs to carefully pick what it’s doing, because each set also has Pokémon it CAN’T beat, so it’s more like 3-4 different Pokémon that all happen to have the same stats and typing. Edit: Or, to extend the chess metaphor, Snorlax (or in Gen 1, Tauros) is your Queen. Can it do basically anything? Yeah. Does it win basically any 1v1? Also yeah. But you’ve still only got one, your opponent has one, too, and it’s not strong enough to win the game on its own. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 13:25 on Oct 4, 2022 |
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Oct 4, 2022 13:17
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girl dick energy posted:
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Oct 4, 2022 14:04
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CzarChasm posted:I can see casual play being more interesting for myself, because there's more opportunity for variety and seeing some weird things like training an obscure TM on a Farfetch'd or something. So the thing is, there's two dimensions to Pokemon. There's the strategic dimension: team building and composition -- and there's the tactical: actual turn by turn decisions in a battle. It sounds like your interest leans more towards the former, and there's nothing wrong with that. It does mean, however, that the least strategically complex competitive Pokemon meta isn't going to hold as much appeal to you. Because you're right: you're generally going to see the same top players on every team, because they're that much better than the alternatives and there's fewer levers to tweak on any of those choices, since EVs as we know them don't exist, and there's no Hidden Power (for example) to demand anything but the max IVs for each stat. Your strategic decisions are going to be constrained not just because your own options are limited should you want to be maximizing your chance of victory, but also because your opponents face the same restrictions. So the Gen 1 OU meta comes down a lot more, relatively speaking, to tactical decisions made, and maybe you don't find that as interesting. Personally, I like the sound of a meta where switching a Chansey into a Fire Blast to try and get it burned is a daring gamble that you look like a genius for pulling off. The players might be the same, but the moves (in a general sense, not the Pokemons' movepools) are different every time, because even on a complete mirror match the presence of random factors means you always have to adapt to a changing landscape. And yeah, if your interest in Pokemon is "which of these hundred+ viable options do I fill six slots and another five slots for each of those six with" you're not going to have the same excitement for some things as someone whose interest is "which of these nine options do I choose every turn" That's all there is to it.
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Oct 4, 2022 15:15
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There’s still room for creativity with teams in Gen 1, there’s currently thirteen OU Pokémon and probably like two dozen mons that see at least semi regular play, but it’s a 20 year old meta, so you’re not gonna come up with anything no one’s tried before. If you wanna make a weird undervalued strategy work, you need to prove it can work.
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Oct 4, 2022 21:33
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girl dick energy posted:
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Oct 7, 2022 00:40
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mandatory lesbian posted:The only objectively correct thing here is that you need to learn how to use sleep powder better 
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Oct 7, 2022 00:53
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mandatory lesbian posted:The only objectively correct thing here is that you need to learn how to use sleep powder better Woosh
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Oct 7, 2022 01:58
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Sleep Powder is clearly S on that tier list ...oh my god I just got this. 
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Oct 7, 2022 02:15
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I don't get it. 
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Oct 7, 2022 03:52
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Commander Keene posted:I don't get it. For all the people who (like me until today) didn't get the joke: The tiers are just the first letter of the pokemon's names. Snorlax = S Tier, Chancey = C, Electrode = E
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Oct 7, 2022 04:04
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I was halfway through writing a rant about Aerodactyl's many weaknesses and utter lack of STAB moves before I figured it out.
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Oct 7, 2022 04:13
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Mathwyn posted:For all the people who (like me until today) didn't get the joke: 
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Oct 7, 2022 04:26
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Chamale posted:I was halfway through writing a rant about Aerodactyl's many weaknesses and utter lack of STAB moves before I figured it out. I was wondering myself how the f did Aerodactyl become A tier
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Oct 7, 2022 04:46
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I just saw that Starmie, the best Gen 1 pokemon, was at S tier and assumed everything else was correct.
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Oct 7, 2022 04:54
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Pokemon Stadium had a Little Cup where only level 15-20 Pokémon were allowed. You were free to demolish everyone with a level 20 Starmie that knows Surf, Psychic, Thunderbolt, and Ice Beam.
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Oct 8, 2022 01:28
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The way levels work in Pokemon Go, and how they transfer directly to mainline, has made the concept of a "little cup" that only cares about levels very funny. Level 15 Kartana, here we come.
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Oct 8, 2022 03:37
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Chamale posted:I was halfway through writing a rant about Aerodactyl's many weaknesses and utter lack of STAB moves before I figured it out.
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Oct 8, 2022 05:34
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Hey, it has gen 1 hyper beam, what more can you ask of it? A stab move worth anything?
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Oct 8, 2022 05:41
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Snorlax has been my favorite Pokémon ever since I used my first Master Ball back in Blue when it came out, hearing that it is the best and most powerful (or at least up there) warms my heart. Granted, that doesn’t help 12 year old me from getting destroyed by my best friend constantly back at release, but the vindication now is extremely satisfying.
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Oct 8, 2022 06:52
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A Real Horse posted:Snorlax has been my favorite Pokémon ever since I used my first Master Ball back in Blue when it came out, hearing that it is the best and most powerful (or at least up there) warms my heart. Granted, that doesn’t help 12 year old me from getting destroyed by my best friend constantly back at release, but the vindication now is extremely satisfying.
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Oct 8, 2022 10:42
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| # ? May 3, 2024 03:36 |
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girl dick energy posted:Top 5 in all of RBY (and arguably top 3), and unquestioned top 1 in GSC. A worthy use of your Master Ball. 
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Oct 8, 2022 10:57
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