I know right? The format balancing also turns the Pokemon battle system into something genuinely competitive, and the addition of the Fairy typing in the most recent generation really helped to balance the types (although now Fairy is a bit overpowered, so it still needs a little tweaking). Playing Showdown is kind of like playing a good competitive CCG or something. All my life, I’ve wanted RPG battle systems that are actually fun/interesting, and Showdown really scratches that itch.
@shrug, I am sorry to say that despite your willing spirit and dead, black eyes, you lack both the locomotive utility and dental fortitude of the noble bidoof. However, your natural bulk, wasting disease, and propensity for breaking steel girders in two make you a shoe in for Conkeldurr.
As a poster and as a pokemon, you serve as a sort of mayonnaise spackle: you pop up when needed to fill holes and cohere disparate flavors and textures into a unified whole. As a pokemon, this means that you have a nicely diversified portfolio of moves that offer coverage against major type threats. We’ll give you Ice Punch as a not-entirely-assumed threat to the OU’s many dragon types as well as the few nasty grass threats like Serperior. In the fourth slot, we’ll go with Knock Off, which threatens Ghosts and knocks the items off of everyone else. Drain Punch and Mach Punch will be your two STAB moves. Drain Punch gives you the opportunity to regain some health, and Mach Punch is your priority move–useful in general but also specifically because you’re not particularly fast and have semi-unreliable healing.
Speaking of damage and healing, it would be nice to give you leftovers, since you don’t have a dedicated healing move. However, your naturally low special defense and purely offensive moveset makes you a natural fit for an Assault Vest, an item which gives you a 50% SpD bonus, as long as you have all attacking moves.
With this in mind, we’ll pour full EV’s into your HP and attack, making you fairly bulky and one of the strongest physical attackers in the tier. Your ability Iron Fist also adds a 20% bonus to your arsenal of punches, making a meeting with your five friends quite a deadly affair indeed.
[code]shrug the iron tea cup (Conkeldurr) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Mach Punch
- Ice Punch
- Knock Off[/code]
Just remember: no matter how much Borges you read, you are a Physical Attacker. Your non-Fighting moves allow you to fight the various phenonymical lady Ghosts that haunt you, but you’re a bad match up against anything physically defensive or anything wearing a Spiky Helm or with the natural ability to deal impact damage to Physical Attackers. Basically, watch out for your opponent switching in a ferrothorn or garchomp. (Though if they do, you can always hedge your bets with Drain Punch, which will heal some of the damage done and 2-KO’s ferrothorn. Followed by an Ice Punch, it 2-KO’s garchomp as well.) And of course you’ll want to have a Special Sweeper on your team as well.
So, ultimately, I see you as a mid-game utility attacker, useful for dropping Dragons, Darks, Normals or any specially defensive pokemon that threatens or otherwise blocks your win condition pokemon or late-game sweeper. You’ll seldom deliver the coup de grace, but we’ll all remember your noble sacrifice as we feast on the brains of our enemies. Hell, we might even drink bloodened wine from your skull. And really, what more can you hope for from life than a helpful death?
This was a bonus entry. Toups never requested a poke-tulpa, but he’s one of the members of the community that I instantly associated with a pokemon:
Toups, your dedication to the SB community and genial, maternal attitude make you a natural Chansey: the OU metagame’s most effective cleric and ultimately one of the most unflappable of 'mons, unrivaled in its niche and nearly unkillable if correctly deployed.
Much like someone we all know and love, Chansey’s greatest strength is its persistence in what some would consider a state of pre-adulthood. Its secret sauce is Eviolite, an item that gives a 50% bonus to both Defense and Special Defense, provided that the pokemon is still capable of evolving. Combined with Chansey’s already moderately high defensive stats, truly heroic base HP stat, and Normal typing (weak only to Fighting) Eviolite makes Chansey one of the most well-rounded Walls–if not the most well-rounded Wall–in the entire metagame.
[code]Toups (Chansey) @ Eviolite
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 236 HP / 252 Def / 20 SpD
Calm Nature
- Wish
- Soft-Boiled
- Heal Bell
- Seismic Toss [/code]
Next, we should talk about how clerics work in Pokemon. Even with the new doubles battles, pokemon isn’t really much of a party-based battle system. You’re battling pokemon one at time, so in basic concept, each pokemon is an island unto itself, which the trainer heals with items or the pokemon’s own recover abilities. Of course, there are no non-held items in competitive play, which makes a pokemon without some method of healing very limited. For the most part, one pokemon cannot heal another, with two exceptions. The first is Healing Wish, which sacrifices the user to fully heal the switch-in. The less drastic option is Wish, which heals the user by 50% the next turn. However, if you switch pokemon, Pokemon A’s Wish will heal Pokemon B with 50% of Pokemon A’s HP. In this case, 50% of your HP is about 350 HP–about as much as most of your allies will have in total.
In addition, the standard cleric Chansey packs Heal Bell, which clears the entire party of all status effects (very valuable for cutting off stalls), and often Soft Boiled, which allows you to heal yourself by 50% without having to wait a turn. We’ll give you Seismic Toss to give you some attack potential, just in case you’re Taunted (limits you to only attack moves for 3 turns) or if the party gets down to just you. Seismic Toss is a Normal move that does 100 damage every time. It’s great for circumventing defensive strategies, and its only real flaw is that it won’t work on Ghosts.
So there you have it: you’re the smiling utility player that keeps everyone else in good shape. You can switch in on anything other than Fighting, take the hit, and it doesn’t matter. This allows you to scout for the other team’s move sets or just absorb a hit and cast Wish on an ally.
For a team that believes in comebacks, you’re one of the most valuable 'mons we could have.
3 Likes
@schroeder, your love of fighting games and grounded intellectualism make you a gallade: an unusual Psychic/Fighting type who is intensely earnest, loyal, and protective, qualities which make it an excellent team member who would rather contribute to the whole than reach for the brass ring.
Let’s cut to the chase: your base Attack stat is damn high, and your Special Defense is pretty admirable as well. However, your Defense and HP are mediocre at best without particularly impressive Speed. Nobody likes acknowledging their own limitations, but it’s by accepting our assets as well as our flaws that we determine our true path in life.
Almost all pokemon specialize in Special Attack or Physical Attack. Even a pokemon with completely even stats usually picks one attack stat to focus on and builds their move set and EV allocation towards that. When it comes to Defense, some trainers like to even out their pokemon, but many pokemon’s base stats are geared towards being one or the other: Specially Defensive or Physically Defensive. Pokemon who are Physically Offensive tend to be Physically Defensive as well.
This gives you your niche: you’re a Physical Attacker who preys on Special Attackers who typically have lower Physical Defense stats. You can do major damage to them, but they can’t do much to you.
With all this in mind, we’ll invest fully in your Attack. We’ll also put quite a bit in your HP to emphasize your bulk with just a little added to your speed to get you over 200. This way, we’re sure you’re faster than a generally slow pokemon, and we can bank on that, while assuming you’ll probably lose the speed contest against anything with a better base speed stat.
[code]schroeder (Gallade) @ Life Orb
Ability: Steadfast
EVs: 224 HP / 252 Atk / 32 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Zen Headbutt
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off[/code]
Now, let’s address the elephant in the room. You could go mega–if you wanted to. But then nobody else on the team could. And there are some pokemon that really rely on that or that become completely godly with that extra boost, whereas you do quite fine without it. While you’re an active participant, you’re not the type to hog the spotlight.
So, instead of carrying Galladite, you carry Life Orb, which gives all of your attacks a 30% bonus but also saps your HP by by 1/10th with every attack. This maximizes your destructive potential while obviously limiting your longevity. It’s somewhat tempting to give you Drain Punch to even this out, but as you’ll see we have other plans for that move slot. So, ultimately, you’re pretty likely to take one for the team–the Big One that is. Some might see this behavior as martyring, but you really are just trying to help in the only way you know how: by leaning on your strength.
With that in mind, we’ll forego Drain Punch as your Fighting STAB in favor of Close Combat. Now, Close Combat has a great 120 base power, but it also lowers both you defense stats by one level. However, lowered defense doesn’t matter too much when you’re OHKOing everyone who doesn’t resist Fighting type. If you want to avoid that issue, you can always use your Psychic STAB Zen Headbutt, which has respectable 80 BP and is only weak to Steel and Psychic. Of course, Steel is weak to Fighting moves anyway, and we’ll give you the Dark move Knock Off to take care of the Psychics. Sword Dance is there in case you get a free move. It doubles your attack stat, which sets you up for a sweep.
Ultimately, schroeder, you have the potential to go mega and become the team Sweeper, but you realize that there needs to be someone to hold down the mid game. While someone else might take the final glory, nobody will forget the two pokemon you took down with you or the fact that you seemed happy to do it. You Glorious Psychopath.
1 Like
@Loki, as SB’s biggest wrestling fan, I couldn’t help but make you a Machamp: Pokemon’s signature Hulkamaniac and a formidable Physical Attacker, able to step effortlessly between the OU and UU.
Your base stats make you modestly bulky with exceptionally high Attack. To make you a late-game sweeper, the common wisdom is to maximize your Attack and Speed. However, with an unimpressive speed stat, I think it’s more important that you be able to take a hit and come back fighting. So, we’ll even out your Defense stats, max out your HP, and level your Attack to a dangerous but not monstrous 352. On the surface, this build seems to downplay your natural strengths a bit, but combined with Leftovers for gradual recovery it allows you to absorb some extra abuse if we need to deploy you early on.
[code]Loki Laufeyson (Machamp) @ Leftovers
Ability: No Guard
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 96 Atk / 100 Def / 60 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Dynamic Punch
- Bullet Punch
- Power-Up Punch
- Knock Off[/code]
To make up for your dampened Attack stat, we’ll give you Power-Up Punch, a fairly weak attack which raises your Attack stat by one level, making about as powerful as you’d be if we fully invested in your attack in the first place. One boost should give you enough juice to 2HKO most opponents and OHKO quite a few, with two boosts guaranteeing an OHKO against all but the the walliest Walls.
But, like a true wrestling nerd, you know that combat is about much more than spandex and oiled pythons: the synergy between your ability and moveset makes you quite adept at the sweet science of the squared circle. I’m talking about the combination of your ability No Guard and the powerful fighting STAB move Dynamic Punch. Dynamic Punch is a very strong attack which always confuses the target. To balance the fiercesome prospect of a powerful move that always statuses the opponent, Dynamic Punch only has a 50% hit rate. However, your ability No Guard gives all of your attacks a 100% hit rate, with the caveat that all of your opponent’s moves hit you as well. It’s quite a welcome exchange, given how annoying Confuse is for your foe. When confused, a pokemon has a 50% of skipping its turn to attack itself. That is a huge pain in the ass and could easily turn the tide of the battle, especially if the opponent lacks a pokemon who can heal the party.
We’ll also give you Bullet Punch for priority and Fairy control as well as Knock Off, to remove the items from other pokemon and threaten Ghosts who switch in on Fighting moves (which they’re immune to).
Altogether, you are quite a serious Physical threat–particularly dangerous, due to Dynamic Punch and Knock Off with potential as a set-up sweeper. If you were in a sukeban manga, you would probably be the big dude that one of the girls handily dispatches as an indication of her badassitude, but later it would turn out that you have a total crush on her. Just stay out of her panty drawer if you know what’s good for you.
3 Likes
Teaser Update: I made an SB team to test two variations of Ronk builds, along with drobe, Gorblax, Mikey, and Kilroy. Had a pretty hot streak going for about 5 matches, but got trounced in my last two match-ups.
In retrospect, the team is way too focused on Physical Attack (Kilroy was the only Special Attacker), and lacked a speedy enough answer to Mega-Diancie, which I consider to be one of the best pokemon in OU.
And–admittedly–I made some bad calls.
@drobe, this was my first time actually playing your build, and you did quite well for yourself! That Life Orb makes you a beast. Your typing is very threatening to a lot of teams, and your presence in the roster was definitely dictating the other teams’ decisions. In my first loss, I lost you way too early; and in my second I made a bad call–not really thinking that you’d be out-sped by a surprise super-effective attack (a Grass type packing a Fire move).
I’m still debating which way to go with Ronk. I’ve been torn for a while–I even asked him some leading question on FB. But at this point, I might just give him the choice of the two pokemon I’ve been debating. I feel like it’s such a toss up! Either way, he will be a pretty strong asset. Emphasis on “strong.”
@BIGHEADMODE i’m just happy you took so much time and effort in trying to make me a pokemans, i appreciate it!
Make me into a Poko too! My favorite type is psychic and my bae is the psychic lady cat from XY.
Remember when psychic was busted in OG generation? Good times.
Good afternoon, this is just to say I am in awe of @BIGHEADMODE’s encyclopaedic Pokéknowledge. Thank you and good day.
that makes one of us. i’m coming for you, TMKF.
Thanks for the compliment ressie, but “encyclopedic” it ain’t! I’m using a lot of reference material for these posts.
Chiefly, I like to use the Smogon pokedex for quick reference on moves and abilities. When I build pokemon (for this thread or otherwise) I usually consult smogon to compare my own ideas to popular builds. Smogon is a Pokemon community oriented around competitive play. Pokemon Showdown came from them, and they have an online magazine all about Poke-strategy, which has some interesting topics. Ironically, because they’ve basically created their own version of the Pokemon metagame (Showdown) there’s something of a disconnect between their community and the official paid tournaments (since they have very different rule sets). So some will argue that Smogon is an insular community, disconnected from the all-important official tournament scene. I would argue that the Smogon community created a better game than Official tournament rules, but of course, you can just play by tournament rules on Smogon if you like without ever buying a Pokemon game. So yeah.
Bulbapedia is a better resource for the specifics of how a move or ability works. Smogon explanations are essentially summary. They include a more accurate description than the in-game pokedex, but they don’t explain the full math. So, while the in-game pokedex might say, “This move works best on heavy pokemon,” Smogon would say, “20BP damage; damage increases based on the pokemon’s weight,” and Bulbapedia would actually include a table showing the intervals at which the Base Power of the move increases. So Bulbapedia is always the final word on how a move actually works and the math behind it. Excellent resource.
Serebii is an institution, I guess, but I really just use it when I want to see a list of the fastest pokemon in order or whatever. They have a stat database that probably runs on MySQL, so you can see the orders really quickly.
Pokemon DB, on the other hand, actually allows you to cross reference all the pokemon capable of a certain suite of moves, which is really helpful if you think, “Wait, is there a pokemon that can use Pain Split and Superfang?” 'Course, I wish I could also then narrow the search down by Speed stat, but I don’t think there’s a database that offers that functionality on top of the move cross-reference.
Being into exploitative, tricky pokemon builds as I am, I often find myself thinking that I should make my own databases with all this info, but then I always find out that the function I want is out there. But I don’t think any one site hosts a database that does everything I want under one roof.
Oh man, of course! Alakazam was my man. Fucking unstoppable. Psychics are
definitely nerfed in the current meta–too many strong Bugs and Dark Types. Being strong against Fighting and Poison should make up for it, but somehow it just doesn’t work out that way.
I remember when the first games were out, one of the kids in my scout troop said he didn’t use Psychic pokemon because it felt like “cheating.” I thought he was crazy, but I totally got it. Psychic pokemon were just invincible, and hell if I knew why. I read a breakdown on Serebii or Bulbapedia not too long ago about how the Special stat actually worked in Generation I, and it was kind of crazy. Iirc, since Special wasn’t split, and most pokemon tended to have a low Special stat any pokemon with a high Special stat would clean up. Theoretically, I guess that would be balanced by having a low defense stat, but I guess Alakazam was fast enough that it didn’t matter; and it had Recover, so whatever.
On top of that, Ghosts were supposed to be strong against Psychic, but apparently some Ghost moves didn’t actually act as Ghost moves, so they didn’t get any bonus modifier against Psychic.
Oh, and there was no division between Special and Physical attacks at that time, too. I forget how that worked. Something like all type moves were “Special” so were calculated against the Special stat. Not sure if I’m getting that right. If that’s the case though, that really makes Alakazam and Mewtwo godly.
Anyway, when I’ve considered what to make you in the past, I’ve always defaulted to Smeargle and then thought, “Well… That’s a pretty lazy choice.” Knowing what I now know I can really dig in and ask, “What pokemon do I see when I stare at all those pictures of P-sama I keep in my drawer?”
All that plus the only ghost-type Pokemon in the game were also poison, which is weak to psychic (i didn’t realize until years later that this meant they were essentially gas-induced hallucinations!). And bug-types are strong against psychic, but all the bugs in gen 1 suck and half of them are also poison. And speed is hysterically broken. Have you read about how crits worked? They were based almost totally on the speed stat, so anything with Slash could crit on basically every hit. Gen 1 was a beautiful hot mess.
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Checked it and you’re right; the types Water, Grass, Fire, Ice, Electric, Psychic, and Dragon were considered special while the rest were physical (including Ghost!) in Gen I. With the inclusion of Dark type into the Special category, this held true until Gen IV (SoulSilver, HeartGold). The Special stat was split far earlier, in Gen II (Gold, Silver).
Anyway, Bug type attacks had really weak power; it maxed out at 25 with Pin Missile (2-5 times, 95% acc). Ghost wasn’t much better with Lick at 30 and Nightshade damage being dependent on the level of the opponent. Comparatively, Physic had much greater options; that type topped out with Psychic (90 and a chance to lower Special by 33% chance). It’s insane.
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PSYCHIC WAS IN ITS HEAVEN, ALL WAS RIGHT IN THE WORLD
Yes! This is what I was trying to remember. That’s so totally insane! It’s like they weren’t even trying to balance the game…[quote=“sleepysmiles, post:73, topic:866”]
Have you read about how crits worked? They were based almost totally on the speed stat, so anything with Slash could crit on basically every hit. Gen 1 was a beautiful hot mess.
[/quote]
Had no idea–that’s nuts!
@Ronk, while everyone knows that you are SB’s resident man-bear, in terms of poketulpa, you are far from it. While ursaring and pangoro capture your physical majesty, they are both far too bloodthirsty to represent your playful spirit and totally 90’s attitude. No, though you are large in stature, deep down you are an azumarill, a cuddly aquatic fur egg who doesn’t quite know its own strength.
As an azumarill, your greatest asset by far is your native ability Huge Power, which doubles your Attack stat in battle. While your stats are overall pretty average, it’s your ability to focus on a single attribute that allows you to excel past those who would be your peers. And when you hit, you hit hard.
With a full investment in Attack, you come out to a respectable 218, but once doubled your actual attack power is among the highest in the OU format. However, strong Attack alone doesn’t carry the day. To truly Sweep, you either have to be the guaranteed fastest in the battle or able to withstand quite a bit of punishment. While your HP is naturally pretty high, your speed is mediocre. There are ways to work with this, but all of them come with limitations like being stuck with one move or spending a risky turn getting set up.
Ultimately, you like to do what you do best, but it doesn’t consume you utterly. You’re more comfortable with some versatility, the ability to explore your options without committing to a single track. In the end, you don’t want to put yourself out there as the bloodthirsty Sweeper, when the proper investment makes you a natural Physical Wallbreaker.
Ronk (Azumarill) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 240 HP / 252 Atk / 16 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Play Rough
- Aqua Jet
- Waterfall
- Knock Off
We’ll max out your HP to give you plenty of bulk, and give you assault vest to make you extra Specially Defensive. With your excellent Fairy/Water typing you have quite a few resistances and only three weaknesses (Grass, Poison, Electric). So, you’ll be quite versatile in your deployment and able to take quite a bit of punishment, leaping to the defense of your allies, just as the wild azumarill saves swimmers from drowning.
Without the pressure of carrying the game for the team, you can get out there mid-battle and take down anyone who’s giving your buds any trouble, handily dispatching threatening Fighting and Dark types for Gorblax and Kilroy with your STAB move Play Rough, as well as any Dragons (to which you are immune). Waterfall handles Ground, Rock, and Fire types, while Aqua Jet is your priority move to take care of anything that could outspeed you in the clinch. Knock Off is your annoyance move for any ‘mon who likely depend on their items or to threaten Psychic opponents.
Overall, you’ve got it all figured out–using your god-given gifts to help out your friendos and avoiding stress to maintain maximum chillitude. Ain’t nobody got nothing on the Ronkster.
1 Like
@all_monsters, I think of you as the Australian guy who makes cool music, listens to the IC Podcast, and has the same chord organ as me. The temptation with music people is always to find some sort of rock and roll pokemon. But the closest thing would be Loudred, which is some sort of troll with speakers for ears who evolves into a really loud niche toad. So yeah. After some consideration, I realized that you would probably enjoy being a rotom: a ghost pokemon made out of electric plasma who enjoys possessing electronic equipment. As rotom, you’d be able to possess guitars, both through ghost powers and electric manipulation. Hell, you’d be able to enter a sythnesizer or any tone generator and create whatever sounds you want, using the power of your plasma body. Also, you can travel through time.
Cool as it is, base rotom is not particularly formidable in the ring. While it doesn’t technically evolve, it has variations, based on possessing elemental items. Rotom-Wash (a washing machine) and Rotom-Flame (a microwave) are actually really formidable both in stats and typing. But let’s not muddy the narrative by claiming that you hang out in a washing machine between recording sessions. Instead, we’ll work with what we have, which is some pretty awesome typing.
As a Ghost/Electric type with the ability Levitate, you’re immune to Normal, Fighting, and Ground Attacks; resist a bunch of stuff and are only weak to Dark. However, you have pretty subpar HP, and your defensive stats are nothing to write home about, so you don’t naturally take hits well. To compensate for this, we’ll fully invest in your HP to give you some much needed bulk–pretty much bringing you to average. We’ll also give you a Sitrus Berry to snack on for some bounce-back. You’ll automatically eat it to recover 25% of your HP when you’re at 50%.
all monsters (Rotom) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Will-o-Wisp
- Hex
- Thunderbolt
- Thunder Wave
When it comes to your moveset, we’ll need to be a little constrained to make you maximally effective. Your main STAB move will be Hex, a Ghost move with 65 Base Power that doubles if the enemy is statused. 130 base power is one of the strongest base attacks in the game, and your STAB bonus adds a 50% boost to that (doubled against a psychic 'mon). To get it set up, we’ll immediately cast Will-o-Wisp, a move that Burns the opponent 85% of the time. Burn is a nasty status effect that reduces the HP of the opponent each turn and lowers their Attack by one level. If the enemy is a Fire pokemon that might have Flash Fire, a Special Attacker, or a pokemon with a strategy we want to inerrupt, we’ll use Thunder Wave which lowers their Speed by one level and paralyzes the opponent, meaning they have a 50% chance of doing nothing while afflicted. If for some reason your opponent can’t be statused, would quickly heal their status, or they’re weak to electricity, then you can just use Thunderbolt off the bat.
Ultimately, I’m not sure that this gambit quite cuts it in the OU, but you should be good on our UU team as a check to Flying, Water, and Psychic pokemon, as well as something to switch in early game to status enemies.
And if you don’t mind hanging out in a washing machine, we can always create an OU version of you, as well.
1 Like
I think this is currently our only Pokemon thread, so:
http://mgx0.tumblr.com/post/139515878517/it-was-supposed-to-be-four-simple-images-in-a-week
Back in RBY days I remember being sad that teaching Hitmonchan every type of elemental punch for maximum flexibility turned out to not be as effective as I had hoped. Might work better these days now that the damage of those is based on the physical Attack stat?