Small Questions Thread

[Gin]

Small Questions Thread:

Competitive Battling Edition

Ok, most of the threads being posted in this forum are small questions that really shouldn't get their own thread. Post in here if you have a question about the mechanics, if you need help with something, etc. Don't post stuff here that you can easily figure out by going to Bulbapedia, Smogon, or something, or that you could easily test yourself. If you do discover something though, feel free to post it here if it seems helpful.

What Not to Post:

What color car does Ash have?

What level does Pikachu learn Thunderbolt?

What to Post:

Which of the following should I teach my Excadrill?

What is the purpose of X move that I see lots of people use on Y set?

Edited March 21, 2011 by wraith89
Added hyperlinks

[Alexej]

In my Ruby game, I found a slakoth with wonder guard and pokerus. I transferred it into my SoulSilver. Now it's stats are maxed out and it's a Slaking. It still has the Wonder Guard ability instead of Traunt. How is this possible?

[Kaphotics]

hax

dont even fake it

[Alexej]

No. I don't have action Replay or anything of that sort.

[Gin]

It's hacked. You probably traded it or something.

[Gigadude]

I'm kind of new to this whole battling other people thing, and I have a question. Which, in your opinion is better, stall teams or regular teams? I'm only used to using regular all sweeper teams, because I mostly only play the story mode of pokemon and that's what kills them the fastest. Now that I'm older though the series doesn't really interest me as much(like when I was younger I would put like 300+hours into a game and the newest one only kept me entertained for about 60), so I thought I would try fighting other people. Is it really fun to fight people? I sort of read up on competitive battling back when generation 4 came out. The only difference was back then I was interested in UU tier, and now I want to fight in the uber tier. I'm only interested in fighting other people over wifi, and I assume most of them are using ubers, and I would have to go to a net battling program to be able to fight other people in different tiers am I right?

[Sabeta]

It's hacked. You probably traded it or something.

Even that's impossible. If you trade a Pokemon, it's stats are recalculated, so that means it's stats wouldn't be 999, they'd reset to there original point.

The only thing I can see, is he's either using a cheating device, Hyper GTS, an R4 Device, or he's lying through his teeth.

[Sabeta]

I'm kind of new to this whole battling other people thing, and I have a question. Which, in your opinion is better, stall teams or regular teams? I'm only used to using regular all sweeper teams, because I mostly only play the story mode of pokemon and that's what kills them the fastest. Now that I'm older though the series doesn't really interest me as much(like when I was younger I would put like 300+hours into a game and the newest one only kept me entertained for about 60), so I thought I would try fighting other people. Is it really fun to fight people? I sort of read up on competitive battling back when generation 4 came out. The only difference was back then I was interested in UU tier, and now I want to fight in the uber tier. I'm only interested in fighting other people over wifi, and I assume most of them are using ubers, and I would have to go to a net battling program to be able to fight other people in different tiers am I right?

Actually most people play the "OU" tier. Battling against others is highly competitive, and so if you find fun in pitting your skill against others, than you will find it enjoyable. If you find using your favorites to battle people, and don't like using things everyone else does, you probably wont get too much out of it. Stall in 5th gen isn't as good as Hyper Offense, but it's still viable if you're good at it. I recommend against it for now if you're just trying to get into the game, and experiment with it later. A battle simulator such as Pokemon Online is typically the quickest way to battle, but using forum sites such as this, smogon, or gamefaqs will be able to produce other competitive battlers interested in whichever tier you choose to play. As for Ubers, I don't know how many people play it, but it's one of the harder tiers to master. Small mistakes mean big losses there.

I hope I adequately answered your questions.

[liaF cipE]

What is the probability curve for the randomness in damage calculation? I found that it multiplies damage by a value between .85 and 1 and that it is "random", but is it an even distribution or is it more of a bell curve?

[Bond697]

even

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3781405&postcount=776

[hellmasterbg]

I have a question regarding HP and defensive stats:

Let's say I'm hoping to train a bulkier pokemon, say I don't want to make a 252 Hp / 252 (S)Def and I have only 256 EV points left and desire to make it physically bulk. Should I spend any point in HP? Is it worthier to max HP or defense? Or maybe it's better to increase proportionally?

Also, let's say I want a dual defensive pokémon, Shuckle for example. For it to be the most resistant in both sides, should it be this way (HP, then Def's):

Shuckle (Hardy) 252 Hp / 128 Def / 128 SDef

Stats:

HP: 244 / Def: 528 / SDef: 528

or this way (just Def's) :

Shuckle (Hardy) 4 Hp / 252 Def / 252 SDef

Stats:

HP: 182 / Def: 559 / SDef: 559

These are just examples, I want really to know how this would be applied to every pokémon.

Thanks in advance!

[Delta Blast Burn]

I have a question regarding HP and defensive stats:

Let's say I'm hoping to train a bulkier pokemon, say I don't want to make a 252 Hp / 252 (S)Def and I have only 256 EV points left and desire to make it physically bulk. Should I spend any point in HP? Is it worthier to max HP or defense? Or maybe it's better to increase proportionally?

Also, let's say I want a dual defensive pokémon, Shuckle for example. For it to be the most resistant in both sides, should it be this way (HP, then Def's):

Shuckle (Hardy) 252 Hp / 128 Def / 128 SDef

Stats:

HP: 244 / Def: 528 / SDef: 528

or this way (just Def's) :

Shuckle (Hardy) 4 Hp / 252 Def / 252 SDef

Stats:

HP: 182 / Def: 559 / SDef: 559

These are just examples, I want really to know how this would be applied to every pokémon.

Thanks in advance!

The first set.

[wraith89]

I concur with Delta Blast Burn. Shuckle already has very impressive defences even when uninvested, while Shuckle's HP suffers badly. It needs all the HP it could get.

However, I don't agree with the neutral nature (Hardy). It does not benefit Shuckle in the long run. Get a negative Special Attack or Speed nature or something and a positive Defence or Special Defence. Either one works.

But this doesn't always apply for all Pokemon. You need to actually calculate specific hits to see which ways the Pokemon can survive the best. Chansey and Blissey, for example, work differently. Investing in Defence stat will allow it to take MUCH more physical hits than investing in HP and no Defence, like almost 4x more in Chansey's case.

[hellmasterbg]

Actually I wasn't intending to use these sets, they were just examples, that's the reason of the neutral nature (simpler calculations). And I just thought that I was not very clear, as my question regards more stat / damage calculation than Effort points.

And, as you said, HP would be better than defences for Shuckle because of its very low base HP, but for Wigglytuff, for example, it would be the opposite, right? So I suppose the best way to boost the resistance on a pokémon is to conciliate proportionally its stats depending on the case?

I always tought that 1 more point of HP will make the pokémon more resistant in both sides, but not as much as 2 points, one in each defence, is this right? But I also see most of the sets of bulky attackers prioritizing HP over defences, why would this be?

[randomspot555]

The general rule of thumb of defense is you almost always want to max out HP. But that's only if defense is the only game you're playing.

But wraith is also right in that you should make calculations to see how it works. Or get on Pokemon Online and find out for yourself by battling. That way you can tweak your EVs as you see how your Poke performs.

[wraith89]

Oh we're talking bulky attackers?

Blissey was an extreme case because of her polarised stats: very low physical Defence and already high base HP means investing Defence serves better. I suppose it's the same for Wigglytuff. You can even see things like Drifblim invest more in Defences than HP due to that reason. Having more HP is generally the simpler way because it adds more survivability in both sides. Uninvested can leave stuff like Blastoise with 299 HP cap with 31 IVs, and that's not desirable. But usually when there is Defence or Special Defence invested, it is to survive something specialised. I even remember at one point someone said 52 HP/204 Def on Donphan is bulkier physically than just going 252 HP altogether, but of course not on the special side. It's a tough case, but if you feel like you're not surviving something (for example 252 HP/12 Def on Metagross survives an Earthquake from Dugtrio or something or 156 HP/100 Def Gyarados survives 3 CB Scizor's Quick Attacks, and I even invested HP and Def on Moltres to survive 2 + 2 Extremespeed from Lucario or something...) try to use a damage calculator to test it out. But like randomspot said, generally you want to invest in HP over the defences for bulky attackers.

[Gin]

Oh we're talking bulky attackers?

Blissey was an extreme case because of her polarised stats: very low physical Defence and already high base HP means investing Defence serves better. I suppose it's the same for Wigglytuff. You can even see things like Drifblim invest more in Defences than HP due to that reason. Having more HP is generally the simpler way because it adds more survivability in both sides. Uninvested can leave stuff like Blastoise with 299 HP cap with 31 IVs, and that's not desirable. But usually when there is Defence or Special Defence invested, it is to survive something specialised. I even remember at one point someone said 52 HP/204 Def on Donphan is bulkier physically than just going 252 HP altogether, but of course not on the special side. It's a tough case, but if you feel like you're not surviving something (for example 252 HP/12 Def on Metagross survives an Earthquake from Dugtrio or something or 156 HP/100 Def Gyarados survives 3 CB Scizor's Quick Attacks, and I even invested HP and Def on Moltres to survive 2 + 2 Extremespeed from Lucario or something...) try to use a damage calculator to test it out. But like randomspot said, generally you want to invest in HP over the defences for bulky attackers.

wraith is basically right. However, when talking about natures, it's better not not bother with this kind of stuff for now. Because natures always give you 10%, it's silly to use a bold nature on blissy for that extra like 5-10 defense rather than a calm nature for like 50 spdef, unless it saves you in a very specific case. And by the time you're building teams to be safe from those cases, you'll know what you're doing.

[DowntownOwl]

I'm raising an Eelektross but part of me wants to keep it as an Eelektrik and slap an eviolite on it. The additional 25 base special attack would be great with Eelektross but the double defense on Eelektrik would be spectacular too. Any advice on my decision would be greatly appreciated.

[wraith89]

If you are talking in terms of competitive viability, Eelektrik is not all too bulky, and despite the "no weakness", its lack of resistances does not help it much. Also, Eelektross's movepool is very expansive; you are missing out a lot when you leave it as an Eelektrik (well until it learns moves that you need it to learn, so no evolving until it learns all that it needs to from Eelektrik stage). There's Flamethrower, Grass Knot, Brick Break, etc from Eelektross that would really help because its role was meant to be a hard hitting wallbreaker Pokemon. Otherwise, an Eviolite Eelektrik is more like a bad Ampharos, only slower and not as hard hitting.