Alakazam vs Gengar (as leads)

[Dre]

Liliith- Well zam is better at that. Plus, if you're using psychic you're dropping important coverage or twave. The reason why starmie became OU in the first place was the fact that it's coverage allowed it to sweep and it's defence and twave makes it a problem for physicals.

[WaterWizard]

Ridiculous. Utterly.

[lilith]

Mar 19, 2013 13:21:15 GMT -8 Dre said:

Liliith- Well zam is better at that. Plus, if you're using psychic you're dropping important coverage or twave. The reason why starmie became OU in the first place was the fact that it's coverage allowed it to sweep and it's defence and twave makes it a problem for physicals.

zam is also better than eggy at psychic

[WaterWizard]

Dre, your history is purely speculative, as usual. Please don't claim to know how Starmie "became OU" after reading her Smogon write-up.

For those who want to learn and who don't think the experts are giving 'low-level' advice, I'll say that STAB Starmie is usually the best Starmie. The boosted power changes games, and Chansey and Alakazam can actually be beaten. Thunderbolt is vulgar.

EDIT: softened my tone.

[magic9mushroom]

To elaborate on what WW said, specifically in regards to Psychic:

Psychic has the best chance of 3HKOing Snorlax of any move in Starmie's arsenal (>60%, given that a special-fall on the first turn or any crit results in a nigh-assured 3HKO, and it can even 3HKO with a special fall on the second turn and near-maxed rolls).

Psychic is also the only move Starmie has that a paralysed Chansey gives a damn about, and the special falls can defeat Zam in a pinch. It also hits Cloyster and Lapras quite hard - admittedly not as hard as Thunderbolt, but it's still usually enough to win.

Psychic also eases prediction, because a special fall hurts anything and everything.

[Dre]

WW- None of us have the right to call ourselves 'experts' because we started playing RBY past its peak when it was already dead. If any of us can be considered experts, it's because we have collaborated the most information on. the game of the remaining players, not because we proved ourselves competitively when there actually was a scene.


Starmie was originally favoured for it's sweeping abilities due to its coverage. Chansey became popular due to being able to cockblock starmie. You can ask people who played RBY from the beginning. That's where I get my 'history' from, people who played the game before we started.

Magic- . Firstly eggy isn't a sweeper, it's considered a defensive pokemon. It's used for its typing, sleeping, bulk and booming. Psychic is just it's best all-round attacking move.

I'm not saying psychic is a bad move, I'm saying you have to look at what you're dropping it for on starmie. If you running pyschic, inevitably you're losing some of the coverage that got it its fame, or paralysis, and it's obvious why that's useful. Ok it can 3HKO snorlax, but starmie has a chance at beating lax anyway due to paralysis+recover and it's decent physical bulk. The boltbeam twave set is standard because it threatens the greatest amount of pokemon and isn't completely shut down by anything other than chansey, and even with psychic you'll still have trouble with chansey anyway.

[t3h Icy]

Stay free.

[Dre]

Lol you're going to resort that now?

You've played me three times. The first time you beat me cleanly. The second time you won because I got two clutch FPs that would have drastically changed the battle if they didn't happen. The third time I wasn't focusing/didn't care that much because I was playing Red version. I told you all of this.

You don't need to condescend people like that, it's rude and unnecessary. You constantly tell everyone they're bad at RBY, which not only is rude, but incredibly silly considering you started playing when the RBY scene was already dead. Even if I dominated every single tournament I would never have that kind of arrogance, especially seeing as tournaments today don't mean much because like 10 people still play this game.

And what's up with black-holeing threads that bring activity to these forums that are about competitve RBY? And writing condescending things in my profile? Power tripping on a video game forum is really lame man. You may not like what I have to say, but I don't condescend people or insult them directly, I'm civil and never stoop to that level, so I don't deserve that kind of treatment.

[WaterWizard]

If you have a problem with someone, it's best to PM them and/or another mod about it. Now I have to edit this thread.