My new competitive team in Pokemon. (Gen 6 XY OU [Overused Tier])

[BlackEnvyX]

Well with Generation 6 in full swing and the metagame finally starting to settle down, I've had the opportunity to make a pretty fantastic team that has won me quite a few battles on simulators and will win me a couple decent matches on WIFI once I finish breeding the team and Pokebank goes online in December.

Here's my team.

Throh

EVs: 252 HP, 4 Atk, 252 SpD
Nature: Careful ( + SpD, - SpA )
Ability: Guts
Item: Leftovers

Moveset:
Bulk Up
Circle Throw
Ice Punch
Payback


Steelix

EVs: 252 HP, 4 Atk, 252 Def
IVs: 0 Spe
Nature: Relaxed ( + Def, - Spe )
Ability: Sturdy
Item: Leftovers

Moveset:
Gyro Ball
Roar
Stealth Rock
Dragon Tail


Greninja

EVs: 4 HP, 252 SpA, 252 Spe
IVs: 30 Atk, 30 SpA, 30 Spe
Nature: Hasty ( + Spe, - Def )
Ability: Protean
Item: Life Orb

Moveset:
Hidden Power (Fire)
Surf
Dark Pulse
U-Turn


Deoxys-D

EVs: 252 HP, 252 Def, 4 Spe
Nature: Bold ( + Def, - Atk )
Ability: Pressure
Item: Leftovers

Moveset:
Calm Mind
Psyshock
Recover
Flash Cannon


Kyurem-B

EVs: 4 HP, 252 Atk, 252 Spe
Nature: Adamant ( + Atk, - SpA )
Ability: Teravolt
Item: Choice Scarf

Moveset:
Dragon Claw
Fusion Bolt
Iron Head
Stone Edge


Zapdos

EVs: 252 HP, 4 SpA, 252 Spe
Nature: Timid ( + Spe, - Atk )
Ability: Pressure
Item: Leftovers

Moveset:
Charge Beam
Heat Wave
Ancient Power
Thunderbolt

Well, what do you guys think of my team? A bit unorthodox but it has decent synergy and nets some really great KOs.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Unusual choice of pokemon. Many of them have rather poor stats if I recall compared to others although I have no idea about the current generation of pokemon.

Frankly competitive pokemon is quite stupid, seeing how RNG dependant it is. This can be seen in TAS of various pokemon games where they pull off a stupid chain of critical hits (their attacks) and misses (enemies).

Sure OHKO skills are kind of banned, but that is people trying to make something that is broken, less broken. The entire problem originates from the short number of turns each battle lasts, there is no real long term strategy as most pokemon can only survive between 2-4 hits if you are lucky.

You can think of pokemon kind of like super smash bros without items turned off. There is a chance a final smash spawns right next to you giving you a free KO because the opponent cannot stop you getting it. Like wise in Pokémon there is always that chance that you get more than one critical hit against your opponent who gets more than one miss against you turning a close battle into a total wipe out.

After all, there is a reason why "Critical Hit! Its super Effective!" is famous.

 

[BlackEnvyX]

Unusual choice of pokemon. Many of them have rather poor stats if I recall compared to others although I have no idea about the current generation of pokemon.

Frankly competitive pokemon is quite stupid, seeing how RNG dependant it is. This can be seen in TAS of various pokemon games where they pull off a stupid chain of critical hits (their attacks) and misses (enemies).

Sure OHKO skills are kind of banned, but that is people trying to make something that is broken, less broken. The entire problem originates from the short number of turns each battle lasts, there is no real long term strategy as most pokemon can only survive between 2-4 hits if you are lucky.

All the things in bold, I gotta call you out on mate.

The Pokemon metagame isn't stupid. Let me explain why.

The critical hits are necessary for multiple reasons; to add a sense of danger to setting up, vamping up the risk and tension, and to keep balance (hey let's set up repeatedly without any repercussions or risks!) Sure they're frustrating and downright evil sometimes, but they're necessary.

As for misses, if you're using a move with under 100% accuracy, that's your own fault. Unless you get hit by a move that reduces accuracy, you're not gonna have a miss problem as Evasion clause is standard in every tier preventing people from using evasion boosting moves such as Double Team and Minimize. Stone Edge has 100 BP but 80% accuracy, you're taking the risk of missing by using it over a move with 100% accuracy. Not something to complain about.

As for the amount of turns a battle lasts. The minimum amount of turns a battle can be is six turns. The average length of battles that I'm in is usually 25 - 50 turns. I've been in battles where I've gone over 250 turns. Some matches are fast paced, some are slow paced. It all depends on your playstyle, whether you're hyper offensive, stall oriented, etc. It's an amazing metagame, you just have to delve deeper and practice.

In regards to saying those Pokemon have low base stats, yes and no. There are multiple pokemon with REALLY low BST (example: Sableye) who can compete with the big boys in ubers thanks to an amazing ability, movepool and other factors. Stats may be a big deciding factor as to whether or not to use a Pokemon, but they are definitely not the most important. A sky high attack stat is nothing if you don't have the movepool to use it. All of the Pokemon on my team are using their best traits to their best advantages.

I think you should revisit the metagame, it seems like you left it on a sour note. I can help you get back into it if you want.

 

[GhostThruster]

Randomness is the bane of competitive gaming.

If something is overpowered, dont make it random. Nerf it.

 

[BlackEnvyX]

Randomness is the bane of competitive gaming.

If something is overpowered, dont make it random. Nerf it.

But it's not overpowered though. There's a small percentage chance for an attack to bypass defensive boosts and do 1.5 x (it used to be 2 x) its normal damage.

How on earth is that OP?

 

[Dr Super Good]

and to keep balance

Randomness does the opposite mathematically. Sure you can balance the averages but any form of randomness will introduce unbalanced extremes. In games like Diablo III this makes little difference against monsters since you roll so many die every minute slight result fluctuations are entirely masked. However in Pokémon where a very limited number of moves are made per Pokémon per battle, this is disastrous as the variation can much more easily reach the extremes.

The number of times my sister has cried out "STOP MISSING" when playing against some in-game trainers is quite numerous. She even went on to explain that these moves are meant to have around 90% accuracy.

As for misses, if you're using a move with under 100% accuracy, that's your own fault. Unless you get hit by a move that reduces accuracy, you're not gonna have a miss problem as Evasion clause is standard in every tier preventing people from using evasion boosting moves such as Double Team and Minimize.

Very few moves have 100% accuracy. Those that do usually have shit other properties such as low PP or poor damage.

Adding an "Evasion clause" preventing the use of evasion boosting moves is once again "people trying to make something that is broken, less broken". You do not see leagues in SC2 having "no X" clauses preventing the use of X unit.

Stone Edge has 100 BP but 80% accuracy, you're taking the risk of missing by using it over a move with 100% accuracy. Not something to complain about.

This works fine when against random trainers as the odd miss here and there makes no difference. However in competitive when every turn counts, the very chance of a miss adds unfairness to both sides. The move user can have the ugly situation where it appears to always miss due to the Gaussian distribution from consecutive random trials in which case the move might as well have 0 power. On the other hand the person who has the move used against them might have it never miss on them (or worse, critical on top of that) which is on the other end of the Gaussian distribution making the move far more powerful than it should be. If you had to use the move 20 times to kill a Pokémon this is not as much of a problem but I am pretty sure only a few moves can be made per Pokémon unless it has recovery moves and items are involved.

I've been in battles where I've gone over 250 turns.

That is only really possible if stalling is used. This can vary from healing moves, to type resistance matches to stun moves or if both teams spam self-buffs instead of attacking. The fact is that if a powerful Pokémon uses a reasonably powerful move (around 100 damage) with type bonus that is double super effective that lands a critical hit, few Pokémon will survive more than 1 attack. On the other side, if you have two weak Pokémon (the dregs) with high defence and only type weakness and healing, the battle will last for ages.

As for the luck factor... Bring on Wobuffet (although I think he was nerfed). Anything he survives there is a near 50% chance he will reflect with increased power back at the attacker and destiny bond (I think) seals the deal. I think he was banned or nerfed for that reason, since every battle was a gamble.

A sky high attack stat is nothing if you don't have the movepool to use it.

Most high attack Pokémon have quite nice offensive moves. Sure they do have a miss chance (bring up my previous argument) but if they do not miss they really hurt.

There's a small percentage chance for an attack to bypass defensive boosts and do 1.5 x (it used to be 2 x) its normal damage.

Well I was referring to back when it was 2x since I am an old player (not played the new ones as they failed to advance beyond the GBC capable gameplay until a few months ago). However even with 1.5, that is not the be scoffed at. If you use Hydro Pump (a move with huge water damage and lowish accuracy) and it hits all times and lands a critical all times against Pokémon who are weak to it, that 1.5x damage is pretty large.

If you throw 2 identical Pokémon against each other, it is entirely the RNG that decides who win and there can be situations where one wins without taking any damage.

They would be far better off replacing move accuracy with a damage range. Raising accuracy decreases the range (raising the average). Decreasing accuracy increases the range (decreasing the average). This would not entirely solve RNG unfairness but would certainly remove extremes. Things like evasion do not belong in a turn based RPG where gameplay revolves around very small number of turns.

 

[GhostThruster]

But it's not overpowered though. There's a small percentage chance for an attack to bypass defensive boosts and do 1.5 x (it used to be 2 x) its normal damage.

How on earth is that OP?

you've both missed and misinterpreted my point completely. what im trying to say is that this:

add a sense of danger to setting up, vamping up the risk and tension, and to keep balance

can be done in SO many ways without randomness. randomness should not be in competitive gaming, unless it is almost non-impactual and/or very easily predictable/scoutable/beatable (by both user and target). i do understand pokemon is primarily single player, so nintendo is not really at fault for implementing chance-based outcomes.

 

[Dr Super Good]

randomness should not be in competitive gaming

Yet so many competitive games have randomness. The key is when to choose to randomize and when not. Things like randomized terrain in a RTS like Age of Empires worked for some maps but suffered problems in others. Games like WC3 use randomization for all unit damage and many abilities however combat is so fast and units so durable that the odd poor roll here and there is completely masked by the average. On the other hand a game like Pokémon which uses random outcomes heavily suffers greatly as so few rolls are taken that the RNG can easily appear to become unfair. Using RNG for random item spawning at fixed item points is also in some competitive games. However using RNG for totally random item spawning (aka Super Smash Brothers) is often unfair as some times the items themselves kill you or give you free kills.

 

[GhostThruster]

took the quote out of context. read the rest of the sentence

most of the randomness in wc3 was relatively minor, but if u watch pro replays ull see many times where a lucky bash, lucky bm crit, or extremely lucky book of the dead item drop won the game for a player.