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Post by jorgen on May 18, 2013 9:55:35 GMT -8
Decided to create a thread because I have a spot of free time and this place could use some action. Basically, post your favorite Pokemon to use in OU, as well as why it is that you like to use it and how you feel it meshes with your playstyle. It doesn't have to be creative or a gimmick, but obviously it's no fun if you just post "Tauros" with no explanation whatsoever. Anyhoo, my favorite mon to use in OU is this guy:  Basically, he's the safest approach to smashing your opponent's brains in the game has to offer (Lapras is pretty good, too, but not quite as impactful), has plenty of room for creative movesets, and of course if all else fails he can step in to check just about anything you need him to. Kinda like his GSC counterpart, really, only he's not as nearly as unholy a monster in RBY. Snorlax has just been good to me. With prediction and paralysis, he's unstoppable, but even if you're having an off game it's possible to just sling him in against Chansey like the big ol' wrecking ball he is, especially if you're running Rest. Either way, he's going to have plenty of opportunities to switch in and fire off Body Slams, and by the time he's through the stage will have been set pretty nicely for a Tauros cleanup operation. I like to play pretty aggressively, so the way Snorlax makes it easy to do that just feels right to me. Of course, he can be a bit of a lame duck against people who abuse Wrap, but that's a lot of things, really. |
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Isa
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Post by Isa on May 18, 2013 10:22:11 GMT -8
Rhydon all the way.
I made a thread about him almost two years ago, in which I stated that I had almost never used him. Since then, I've had him on a good 50% of my teams, which is probably more than it deserves. The main reason I like it is not really because of the walling of Zapdos (although it's damn important), but because it gives me opportunities to make switches based on prediction. I love switching in on Thunderbolts with Rhydon, and while Golem does the same, he's just too weak when attacking - Rock Slide from Rhydon on Eggy does a number, whereas Rock Slide from Golem is quite underwhelming.
Similarly, I enjoy Zapdos (and GYAAAAAA) due to their Earthquake immunity combined with raw power. Gengar never quite did it for me due to his lack of power by comparison - no STAB or move that causes status once sleep has been thrown hurts, and I don't like Confuse Ray enough to be willing to use it.
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Post by cheese on May 18, 2013 10:52:45 GMT -8
Lapras! I love her, a pokemon that can sleep, paralyse, freeze and confuse opponents! Sing seems to work out more often then it has any right to, and I love her bulk and the fact that she's quite hard to counter. STAB Blizzard also never hurt!  |
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Post by Agent Syrup on May 18, 2013 15:11:45 GMT -8
I have to agree with Isa on Zapdos and Rhydon being AWESOME! (though I don't know what "GYAAA" is supposed to mean. I love Pokemon you can't just throw out there, but work exceptionally well they should be used. For that reason I also love using Victreebel in OU. I find I actually play better when he's on my team, even if sometimes I don't get a chance to use him. Having him makes me so much more careful and gives me a sense of direction with what my team needs to do to.  |
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Isa
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Post by Isa on May 18, 2013 15:19:59 GMT -8
This should explain GYAAAAAAAA: rby2k10.proboards.com/post/7704/threadI've since changed my moveset of choice (Hydro Pump > Surf > Blizzard), but it explains the GYAAA, which is what you asked about. =p |
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Dre
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Post by Dre on May 18, 2013 16:52:05 GMT -8
Rhydon is probably my favourite pokemon concept-wise that I use in battles, but bel is probably my favourite in terms of playing competitively.
I just like the control it has and the fact that it's so skill dependent. It's one of those pokemon where luck rarely determines how well it does, unlike something like tauros.
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Post by magic9mushroom on May 18, 2013 21:29:34 GMT -8
Rhydon is probably my favourite pokemon concept-wise that I use in battles, but bel is probably my favourite in terms of playing competitively. I just like the control it has and the fact that it's so skill dependent. It's one of those pokemon where luck rarely determines how well it does, unlike something like tauros. Dood all four of your Victreebel's moves can miss and you once blamed an entire loss to me on Stun Spore missing Starmie. You're just making yourself look like a total doofus by spouting this drivel. For me it's a tossup between Starmie and Leech Seed Egg. Starmie just kinda has everything - enough bulk to not be 2HKOed by Tauros, Recover, decent coverage, T-wave, and lethal secondary effects + godlike crit rate. Leech Seed Egg doesn't have the versatility, but dear god does it refuse to die. |
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Post by Dexter on May 18, 2013 23:50:49 GMT -8
Zapdos
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Dre
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Post by Dre on May 19, 2013 20:56:02 GMT -8
Rhydon is probably my favourite pokemon concept-wise that I use in battles, but bel is probably my favourite in terms of playing competitively. I just like the control it has and the fact that it's so skill dependent. It's one of those pokemon where luck rarely determines how well it does, unlike something like tauros. Dood all four of your Victreebel's moves can miss and you once blamed an entire loss to me on Stun Spore missing Starmie. You're just making yourself look like a total doofus by spouting this drivel. For me it's a tossup between Starmie and Leech Seed Egg. Starmie just kinda has everything - enough bulk to not be 2HKOed by Tauros, Recover, decent coverage, T-wave, and lethal secondary effects + godlike crit rate. Leech Seed Egg doesn't have the versatility, but dear god does it refuse to die. I don't remember the battle, but the way I see it is that if I lose a battle because of a 25% chance on one turn then I got unlucky. The difference between bel and tauros is that bel will do its thang unless it gets improbable RNG. Tauros needs somewhat improbable RNG to do its thang. Unless you're using it for revenging, tauros will flop in a fair few battles if it doesn't get the RNG it needs. The kind of RNG it needs to be worthy of the 'King of RBY' title is actually improbable (below 50%) it's just still probable enough to occur every few battles. What makes tauros so good is that it's an absolute monster when it does get that RNG. This of course is talking about using tauros as a sweeper. Using it for revenging, or as your hard-hitter in your wrap team are different because he doesn't need improbable RNG to fulfil his role there. What I like most about starmie is its defensive utility and the ability to lure chansey. I think this idea that it's a sweeper is a delusion to be honest (not saying that you think that). |
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Post by magic9mushroom on May 19, 2013 22:51:06 GMT -8
What I like most about starmie is its defensive utility and the ability to lure chansey. I think this idea that it's a sweeper is a delusion to be honest (not saying that you think that). Eh, Chansey doesn't like the constant chances to be lolhaxed by Blizzard or Psychic when it switches in. |
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Post by shadow on May 21, 2013 1:31:34 GMT -8
The difference between bel and tauros is that bel will do its thang unless it gets improbable RNG. Tauros needs somewhat improbable RNG to do its thang. Landing several fairly accurate moves is often less likely than getting an 'improbable' CH/paralysis from several body slams. And even without such improbable events, Tauros does well. Anyways, Kingler: maximum style and actually pretty good. |
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Dre
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Post by Dre on May 21, 2013 1:41:01 GMT -8
If tauros isn't revenging, it needs a fair bit of RNG to be worthwhile. If you removed crits and paralysis from its body slams then it would suck as sweeper. That's why it's so inconsistent as a sweeper, because it needs 30%s and 22%s or whatever it is to do well as a sweeper.
The way I see it, bel will do what it's supposed to do 90% of the time if I play it correctly. You can play a tauros badly and still have it win you a game out of nothing, or you can play it well and have it not perform for you.
I'm not criticising people who use taurps or anything, I was just contrasting bel's consistency against it.
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Post by magic9mushroom on May 21, 2013 3:23:39 GMT -8
If tauros isn't revenging, it needs a fair bit of RNG to be worthwhile. If you removed crits and paralysis from its body slams then it would suck as sweeper. That's why it's so inconsistent as a sweeper, because it needs 30%s and 22%s or whatever it is to do well as a sweeper. The way I see it, bel will do what it's supposed to do 90% of the time if I play it correctly. You can play a tauros badly and still have it win you a game out of nothing, or you can play it well and have it not perform for you. I'm not criticising people who use taurps or anything, I was just contrasting bel's consistency against it. At some point, Bel is going to have to hit a Wrap or eat Thunder Wave, and that's already an 85% chance. |
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Dre
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Post by Dre on May 21, 2013 16:07:48 GMT -8
Which is why I said 90% of the time. If you wrap 8 times and use two powders and hit them all, you didn't get lucky, you just didn't get unlucky. If you get two crit bslams in a row with tauros and get a paralysis, you got lucky, because it was more likely that it would not happen than it would.
It's just basic probability. Bel has probable odds to fulfil it's role, tauros doesn't (if you're using it as a sweeper).
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Post by shadow on May 21, 2013 18:44:29 GMT -8
Sounds like you need to practice your basic probability. (0.858)(0.752)=0.15327592033447265625. 90% =/= 15%.
On the other hand, Tauros does it's job reliably and has a decent chance to do more, if those unlikely events occur.
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Dre
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Post by Dre on May 21, 2013 22:55:38 GMT -8
Well I was looking at it in terms of powders having a 1 in 4 chance to miss, so if you used it twice on average it would hit both times. I was probably wrong with the probability though.
And no tauros doesn't do it's job reliably unless that job is revenging. Tauros would lose to most of OU 1v1 if it couldn't crit or get paraslams. When a tauros wins you a battle, it's because of a crit or a paraslam (again, unless it's revenging).
Generally with bel I never go below the 20 PP mark with wrap, which means on average I should probably only miss wrap once or twice. I generally plan out my play so that I can afford one or two misses, or have back-up options in the case of a miss.
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Post by magic9mushroom on May 22, 2013 3:07:22 GMT -8
Which is why I said 90% of the time. If you wrap 8 times and use two powders and hit them all, you didn't get lucky, you just didn't get unlucky. If you get two crit bslams in a row with tauros and get a paralysis, you got lucky, because it was more likely that it would not happen than it would. It's just basic probability. Bel has probable odds to fulfil it's role, tauros doesn't (if you're using it as a sweeper). As I said. At some point, Bel will have to use Wrap against something that's already in rather than switching into it. That's a 15% chance to have Bel paralysed, right there, and therefore "90% of the time" is horseshit - not to mention that I've seen you switch it into Body Slams and take a 30% chance. (Also, you often claim Slowbro is luck-based, which is a similar "usual decent benefit, sometimes huge penalty" situation (in contrast to Tauros's "usually mediocre, sometimes owns hard") with actually smaller probabilities of "getting unlucky" than Victreebel has of missing Stun Spore, and usually smaller than Victreebel's chance of missing Wrap.) |
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Dre
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Post by Dre on May 22, 2013 6:15:13 GMT -8
I don't understand how many times I have to explain this to you. If I lose because of a 15% chance, then I got unlucky. If I constantly set up scenarios where the odds are considerably in my favour, but by chance that 15 or 10% occurs then I probably outplayed my opponent and got unlucky.
Hax is basically when something that has less than a 50% chance of occuring happens. Bel doesn't rely on 22 and 30%s, it relies on 85 and 90s, and maybe one or two 75s.
If you have to rely on a -50% chance to win a battle, then you got outplayed. If you needed a crit or a paraslam from tauros to win, then you got lucky and most likely outplayed as well.
I rarely switch bel into attacks directly. Most of the time I wrap switch it in, or I send it in after one of my pokemon has been KOd (it's my go to pokemon after an explosion). If I switch bel into a body slam, then it would be out of desperation, meaning I've probably gone to my plan C to try win the battle.
Also, if you're saying that bro has better odds to fulfill it's role than bel does, then you're basically saying it has an 75-90% chance to sweep 3-4 pokemon. If that were the case it'd be the best pokemon in OU and would be on every competitive team.
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Post by shadow on May 22, 2013 12:21:05 GMT -8
I don't understand how many times I have to explain this to you. If I lose because of a 15% chance, then I got unlucky. If you have to rely on a -50% chance to win a battle, then you got outplayed. If you needed a crit or a paraslam from tauros to win, then you got lucky and most likely outplayed as well. No, you're wrong. Victreebel can beat Articuno 1-on-1 with a stun spore and a bunch of wraps as long as nothing 'improbable' occurs, but overall it is likely to miss. Likewise, Tauros will likely beat reflect Chansey in a 1-on-1 fight, because over the course of several attacks those 'improbable' events become probable. And no tauros doesn't do it's job reliably unless that job is revenging. Tauros would lose to most of OU 1v1 if it couldn't crit or get paraslams. When a tauros wins you a battle, it's because of a crit or a paraslam (again, unless it's revenging). Sounds like by "(unless it's revenging)" you're talking about sending Tauros haphazardly into his (full health, unparalyzed) worst matchups. Even then he has a reasonable chance of turning the tables (I think Icy crunched the numbers for several of these way back when), but obviously if you use any pokemon stupidly their usefulness will be squandered. Victreebel won't do much without some support, either. Generally with bel I never go below the 20 PP mark with wrap, which means on average I should probably only miss wrap once or twice. I generally plan out my play so that I can afford one or two misses, or have back-up options in the case of a miss. The issue is that Victreebel is unreliable. Particularly if you're using it to wrap, Victreebel is heavily dependent on the RNG. Nevertheless, I think Victreebel is severely underrated even under RBY2K10's rules. It's the best way to patch up a Slowbro weakness while also adding a secondary sleeper, and it even has the tools to fight Chansey/Zam. |
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Post by magic9mushroom on May 22, 2013 17:15:04 GMT -8
I don't understand how many times I have to explain this to you. If I lose because of a 15% chance, then I got unlucky. If I constantly set up scenarios where the odds are considerably in my favour, but by chance that 15 or 10% occurs then I probably outplayed my opponent and got unlucky. You are being a total goof, and as a third-year student of probability I feel compelled to demonstrate just how much of a goof. You want to know how many Wraps you have to consecutively hit before it's the same chance as Tauros "haxing" via crit or para? I'll tell you; 5. If you use Victreebel's Wrap 5 times, and it hits every time, you have gotten just as lucky (44% vs. 45%) as a Tauros using Body Slam once and critting or paralysing. Turning that on its head, a Tauros only has to Body Slam 3 times before the chance that it'll "hax" at least once is the same (83% vs. 85%) as Victreebel hitting Wrap once. The difference between the two is that Tauros's usefulness is positively skewed, while Victreebel's is negatively skewed (as is Slowbro's). The latter is actually "less reliable" inasmuch as it permits catastrophic failure (Tauros will always do *something* unless it 255s, Victreebel may not). A crit or paraslam from tauros (as in, the event that Tauros critslams, or Tauros paraslams, or both) has a probability of 45%. If Tauros got three slams in over the course of a battle, and critted or paraed on at least one, that isn't "getting lucky" because it's got an 83% chance of happening - more than Victreebel has to hit Stun Spore or Sleep Powder. I rarely switch bel into attacks directly. Most of the time I wrap switch it in, or I send it in after one of my pokemon has been KOd (it's my go to pokemon after an explosion). If I switch bel into a body slam, then it would be out of desperation, meaning I've probably gone to my plan C to try win the battle. Victreebel does not have a 75-90% chance to sweep 3-4 pokemon. :S What 'Bro does have is around a 94% chance to drain all of Reflect Zam's PP without dying, and an over 70% chance to defeat a paralysed Thunderbolt Chansey. Withdraw Slowbro also has around a 40% chance to drain all of Tauros' Body Slam PP without dying (and, obviously, Slowbro often kills Tauros more quickly than that), while the chance of draining Snorlax's PP is closer to 97%. As for Slowbro's anti-Slowbro duties, the chance of Tobybro getting past Tankbro before exhausting Surf are approximately 6% assuming Tankbro conserves its Rest PP (as I do) by healing only after being hit 4 times (if it Rests after being hit 3 times, that chance plummets to 2.3%). These are chances of stalling out whole Pokemon similar to Victreebel's chances of hitting one move, and I've barely touched on its attacking power. Against its "counters" - Starmie, Jolteon, Zapdos, and Gengar - Slowbro is indeed luck-based. Against the others? No. |
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Dre
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Post by Dre on May 22, 2013 17:40:31 GMT -8
Shadow- What I consider revenging is anything in KO range of bslam. You can't honestly say that's the only way he's used, and the only role he's expected to flourish in.
Magic- I never said 75-90% chance to sweep 3-4 pokemon. I said 75-90% chance to fulfill it's role.
I know that if I take 4 tauros body slams and don't get a crit or a para, then I got lucky, I get that. The thing is when we play pokemon we don't use the law of averages. We don't say 'well because I landed sleep powder the last three times, I'll miss this time'. What we do is look at the probability on every individual turn, because we know the previous turns doesn't affect the probability of this turn.
So with bel on any given turn, I have a 75-90% chance to succeed. I understand that if I hit wrap 12 turns in a row I got lucky, but on the 13th turn it is still a good option because it still has an 85% chance.
This what I mean by bel being more calculated than tauros. On any given turn, bel has a higher chance to do what it needs to than tauros. This makes it more calculated because when I'm planning ahead, I can bank on bel landing the move (somewhat) because it is probable enough to land reliably. Planning with tauros is less calculated because you can't bank on him haxing on a specific turn, which is why there is generally less strategy with him outside of revenging.
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Post by magic9mushroom on May 22, 2013 17:51:56 GMT -8
Magic- I never said 75-90% chance to sweep 3-4 pokemon. I said 75-90% chance to fulfill it's role. Yeah, but expecting a 3-for-1 from Slowbro as "fulfilling its role" was some pretty serious goalpost-moving. That's like saying "oh, Elrond did as much in Lord of the Rings as Frodo did, because they both fulfilled their roles" - wait, Frodo failed at the end, so he did less by your metric, lol. IE, Bel is consistently bad because Bel consistently takes high risks of catastrophe. Tauros can be relied on to do reasonably well, Bel cannot. lololol The thing is that Tauros doesn't usually result in catastrophic failure if it fails to hax on one particular turn - there's a lot of scenarios where Tauros wins if it haxes more than X times in Y turns. Victreebel... does. |
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Dre
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Post by Dre on May 22, 2013 18:31:24 GMT -8
I wouldn't consider a 15% chance particularly high risk. It gets punished hard for failure, but in terms of calculation and planning 5-10 moves ahead, those are good odds to work with.
I never said bel was better than tauros or anything. I'm just saying that I have greater control over how it performs. If it performs well, it's most likely due to good play. If it performs badly, it's most likely due to bad play or getting bery unlucky. I understand the huge penaltty for a miss. I just got haxed out of the tourney because I missed about 1/3 of my wraps, plus some very early turn freezes and about 5 clutch FPs on top of a lot of other hax. But I think to myself, that RBY will always have luck, and the best thing you can do is just set up favourable odds. I did that, but on those occassions I got ver unlucky.
I can plan ahead and expect bel to land wrap on turn 3 of the plan, I can't expect tauros to paraslam on that turn.
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Post by posthuman on Jun 4, 2013 13:08:13 GMT -8
I vote for Snorlax too, he's a ton of fun--especially when you've paralyzed the hell out of the other team.
I'll also answer for our lost comrades:
Icy: I HAVE A LOVE AFFAIR WITH ZAM <3
WW: For some reason, I really like Articuno.
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Post by johnnyg2 on Jun 4, 2013 13:35:23 GMT -8
My favorite is Zapdos, cause of the way it sweeps once the rocks are down. A properly prepared zapdos has no trouble downing the specialists or physicals as long as the rocks are down. I guess people don't like it cause it takes some preparation, whereas tauros and snorlax can just beat down on the opponent as soon as they're in.
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Post by magic9mushroom on Jun 4, 2013 15:07:01 GMT -8
My favorite is Zapdos, cause of the way it sweeps once the rocks are down. A properly prepared zapdos has no trouble downing the specialists or physicals as long as the rocks are down. I guess people don't like it cause it takes some preparation, whereas tauros and snorlax can just beat down on the opponent as soon as they're in. The problem is that it's very hard to kill the opposing Rhydon/Golem if your opponent knows what you're up to, because Zapdos itself can't wear them down and it's the only thing that will get to hit them. The main way to bait them is Fishlax, but Fishlax is common enough that you'll rarely blindside good players unless you've already put them in a tight spot. And I suppose there's Drain Gar, but Gar should always have Drain anyway so that's even more expected. |
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Post by jorgen on Jun 4, 2013 18:23:42 GMT -8
I thought Garrin Red was the one that liked Zam. I guess it makes sense coming from Icy too.
As for Gengar, imo Night Shade > Drain. Drain is a nice surprise for when you want to take out a Rock, but otherwise I'd rather have 100 damage on Egg.
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Post by lilith on Jun 4, 2013 19:43:28 GMT -8
i liek mudkipz!
umm, moar relatedly, machamp is pretty cool...
oh, this is about OU? totally chansey, coz all the fun is in ice beaming starmie and thunder waving things that are already paralyzed.
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Post by magic9mushroom on Jun 5, 2013 2:49:29 GMT -8
I thought Garrin Red was the one that liked Zam. I guess it makes sense coming from Icy too. As for Gengar, imo Night Shade > Drain. Drain is a nice surprise for when you want to take out a Rock, but otherwise I'd rather have 100 damage on Egg. Egg is nonthreatening, Rhydon is very threatening. Also, Rhydon totally nullifies Gar's Explosion by mindlessly coming into it unless Gar has Drain. EDIT: Okay, sometimes it's worth it to not have Drain, but only insofar as you can surprise people by not having Drain. I'd drop Tbolt before dropping Drain on Gar. |
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Post by lilith on Jun 5, 2013 6:48:57 GMT -8
about drain+ns gengar... i feel like one of tbolt or psychic is pretty important for gengar to be useful outside of bluffing, otherwise dre will do his yolo body slam on it for like 4 turns and not care. like, do you reallllllly want to trade damage vs. rocks for damage vs. normals? i mean, i realize drain helps gengar explode, but he's got to do more than just sleep something and explode. Egg is nonthreatening, Rhydon is very threatening. but eggy does have his own reasons to switch into gengar and isn't getting >25% on eggy pretty cool in most games? also i'd say having gengar out against eggy is most likely to lead to chansey dying or at least something taking a body slam, doesn't that count as threatening (especially if there's no tbolt to discourage snorlax from immediately switching in)? |
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