Tauros vs Alakazam specific situation

[t3h Icy]

By request, what are the chances of a Tauros with little to no HP, vs an Alakazam that has full HP, but is Paralyzed?

First Hyper Beam:

Two Hyper Beams is a guaranteed 2HKO and a CH is a guaranteed OHKO.

Possibilities:

SPOILER: Click to show

Hyper Beam hits and CHs (0.1933)
Tauros wins

Hyper Beam misses and Zam doesn't FP (0.075)
Alakazam wins

Hyper Beam hits and Zam doesn't FP (0.53)
Alakazam wins

Hyper Beam hits, Zam FPs, then doesn't FP (0.132)
Alakazam wins

Hyper Beam hits, Zam FPs twice, Body Slam (0.049)
Tauros wins

Hyper Beam misses and Zam FPs (0.025)
(Repeat)

Alakazam wins ~73.7% of the time.
Tauros wins ~24.23% of the time.
Tie ~2.5% of the time.

Ignoring ties, Alakazam wins ~75.5% of the time, Tauros wins ~24.8% of the time.

Next, Body Slam:

Body Slam CH has a 24/39 chance to OHKO.
Two Body Slams have a 1063/1521 (~70%) chance to 2HKO.

Possibilities:

SPOILER: Click to show

Body Slam CHs and does high damage (0.132)
Tauros wins

Body Slam CHs, does low damage, Alakazam FPs, Body Slam (0.021)
Tauros wins

Body Slam CHs, does low damage, Alakazam doesn't FP (0.062)
Alakazam wins

Body Slam, Alakazam doesn't FP (0.589)
Alakazam wins

Body Slam, Alakazam FPs (0.196 thus far)
Body Slam:

Body Slam CHs (0.042)
Tauros wins

Body Slam does high damage (0.108)
Tauros wins

Body slam does low damage and Alakazam doesn't FP (0.035)
Alakazam wins

Body Slam does low damage, Alakazam FPs, Body Slam (0.012)
Tauros wins

Hyper Beam:

Hyper Beam hits (0.176)
Tauros wins

Hyper Beam misses and Alakazam doesn't FP (0.015)
Alakazam wins

Hyper Beam misses and Alakazam FPs (0.005)
(Repeat)

So with endless Body Slams, Alakazam wins ~68.6% of the time, and Tauros wins ~31.5% of the time.

With Body Slam followed by Hyper Beam, Alakazam wins ~66.6% of the time, Tauros wins ~32.9% of the time, with a ~0.5% of a tie, repeated at the end bit.

So for a quick summary, if you're in this situation, use Body Slam followed by Hyper Beam. Hyper Beam immediately may be a better choice if you have other Pokemon though. One other thing is if you notice the first Body Slam does very high damage, you can safely use Body Slam again, which gives you a better chance of winning over Hyper Beam due to accuracy.

[Crystal_]

But if Tauros loses, a beamed alakazam is almost died, but a body slamed one can recover against special moves (chansey/egg/zam mainly; star/lap/cloy/jynx to an extent).

Moreover, in the first case, if a ~10% para zam manages to come into a para chansey and recover as chansey switches out, zam is still koed by STAB eqs from golem/don, Tauros/lax hbeam (maybe bslam from the later), and 2HKOed by Lap/Star/Jynx and friends.

So i'll probably hyper beam in this matchup unles it's last poke vs last poke.

[Destiny Warrior]

tbh, I'd just switch out to Chansey/Jynx/Eggy in this matchup, unless it was a 1v1. Tauros imo should not take these risks without a high chance of success.

If it were a 1v1, I would likely use BSlam + HB, because it is logically the best choice. The equation gets tricky if Reflect is thrown into the mix though.

[Isa]

Not really, unless Reflect is set up beforehand, in which case you should probably just do HBeam at once.

[t3h Icy]

Yeah, I made this as Garrin Red and Pocket came down to this 1v1 and Earthworm asked me for the percentages.

[Crystal_]

And, could you make a Tauros vs Snorlax one? Would be great to know the odds

[Dexter]

Why are you making this so complicated? If it's 1 vs. 1 you have a higher damage input just wailing on Tauros with psychic.

If it's 2 vs. 1 and your other pokemon is slower than unparalyzed tauros, generally, use thunder wave. This will give you basically an extra hit with the other pokemon that it normally wouldn't have and gives you more chances at full paralysis, and also mostly nullifies the threat of Tauros paralyzing Alakazam.

However, this general rule disregards KO thresholds that should be taken into account before deciding to give up Alakazam's powerful psychic for a thunder wave, so it's still situational.

But, Dexter, what if Tauros Paralyzes you with body slam?

This should be disregarded when coming up with your own game plan, 1 vs. 1. It doesn't matter whether Tauros paralyzes you or not, it shouldn't change your strategy. Tauros paralyzing a faster target is essentially like losing a turn. You either lose a turn trying to gain back your speed advantage by thunder waving or lose a turn being outsped. It doesn't matter, there's nothing you can do either way unless you plan for the match to last a long time and for the full paralysis chance to become a big factor. Two on two is the only time when this should be a factor, and only if your other pokemon isn't already paralyzed.

The chance of full paralysis is only significant across many many turns, something Alakazam likely isn't going to live through. Even if it has reflect, its days are numbered due to Tauros' significant crit rate. So Alakazam vs. Tauros is definitely a no brainer - always Psychic.

Of course, full paralysis chance does become significant the more pokemon you have, so another good rule is you should thunder wave first is if there are still many moves left in the game (4 or more) since you will rack up more chances to fully paralyze, even disregarding the speed gain.

[Dexter]

wait this is about tauros vs. alakazam not alakazam vs. tauros

[Dexter]

where's the other thread?