Lansat Berry is outclassed almost entirely by Scope Lens though. You mention Drapion though, who makes a great user of the forementioned Scope Lens in UU. The set is even top of the analysis. After a SD I don't think there is one pokemon in UU safe from OHKO (if you get a crit) due to Sniper.
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Are unorthodox items viable?
- Thread starter twash
- Start date
Guess it depends on if you want a +1 critical hit rate or a +2 critical hit rate at the cost of 75% health I guess.
Well, with a Superluck pokemon, I could definately see +2 crit rate being useful. The only issue would be bad luck and priority.
Why not just use Focus Energy Kingdra? It takes one turn to get +2 critical hit rate, and your opponent probably wouldn't do 75% to you in one turn. It also frees up your item slot for Leftovers or the Splash Plate. The only problem is that it gives you worse type coverage due to only having three moveslots, but Kingdra already has such good coverage with its STAB moves that it doesn't always need all its moveslots to function.
While I love unorthodox items, there are only so many that you can use. Berries and plates sort of limit you. Otherwise, you can go with Wide Lens or Muscle Band, but that's about it. I change the item on a couple of Pokemon just to try out new things and to help me fake Choice items which I love to do.
Elemental plates are great on offensively minded Pokemon that are fast, strike hard, but don't achieve great type coverage. A great example is a Fist Plate SDApe or NPApe (with Focus Miss/Vaccuum Wave) in OU or a Dread Plate Darkrai in Ubers. A contrary example would be Starmie, who achieves excellent type coverage, and would be better served with an Expert Belt. Another bad example would be trying Icicle Plate on Mamoswine, who isn't fast enough to make good use of it, despite bluffing a Choice item.
I was just popping in right now (1:13 EST :( ) to say that this topic inspired me.
I made an ubers team using Rain + Occa Berry Scizor along with that Ninjask/Rayquaza set listed earlier (My Scizor replaced the Dialga the guy said.) and it works amazingly.
Moveset on the scizor is Baton Pass/Bug Bite/Bullet Punch/Brick Break btw, since it is recieving the boosts then passing away when it gets walled.
I still think Unorthodox items are extremely viable.
I made an ubers team using Rain + Occa Berry Scizor along with that Ninjask/Rayquaza set listed earlier (My Scizor replaced the Dialga the guy said.) and it works amazingly.
Moveset on the scizor is Baton Pass/Bug Bite/Bullet Punch/Brick Break btw, since it is recieving the boosts then passing away when it gets walled.
I still think Unorthodox items are extremely viable.
On more stall oriented teams I absolutely LOVE to run Torment Tran with Shuca Berry. Unlike normal Torment Tran, which gives its speed away with leftovers after taking SR damage, (or any sort of damage for that matter) this set can often trick people in to thinking I'm scarfed. It's also handy for things like say... Aerodactyl, or Metagross, anything else with an Un-STAB Earthquake, I can take an Earthquake hit, Torment, and set up a sub and begin Protect/struggle stalling. The only downside I've seen is if you use faster EV's, to get more speed, and sacrifice bulk, it's hard to set up more than 2 subs at most.
Unorthodox items do help. Considering item clause, unorthodox becomes more mandatory. Wide lens drapion is one of my favorites. Black sludge is a weird item. It is leftovers to poison types and bane for pretty much all trick users. However, they will trick it back to one of your non-poison type pokemon. So, black sludge can be a pretty bad choice in some situations.
Grrr, I'm mtr12, not "that guy".
The reason I used Dialga is that I wanted to only test one variable (Ninjask) rather than two (Ninjask and BP Scizor). Aldaron or someone had used the Dialga set I list below successfully during previous Ninjask tests, so I made Dialga a control.
Scizor is perfectly viable, though, because he's pretty solid in Ubers. The idea of an extended Baton Pass chain in Ubers hasn't really been explored, but its worth a shot.
Here is the Dialga set I (re)used.
Dialga @ Lum Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 6 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Bulk Up
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
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You could try fitting in Draco Meteor somewhere if you were inclined to do so, I guess. Probably over Stone Edge, but then Lugia will be troublesome. To tie this back to the topic at hand: If you use Draco Meteor, Draco Plate becomes a viable item because you fit the criteria of having 2 STAB moves of the same type.
Oh wow, now this is just a bit ridiculous. 25% chance to crit for x3 damage with each attack, not to mention a 20% flinch chance with Waterfall. And if Kingdra can get a second Focus Energy, 50% chance to crit for x3 damage with any attack. I think this is straying into creative movesets territory, but nice.
Haha, sorry, your name was on the other page, and I couldn't be bothered looking it up that early in the morning. I didn't use Dialga because I didn't want to blatantly steal half a team. I knew your combo would work, so I took Scizor and gave it custom EV's and moveset, it actually works pretty well, especially against Leadogre locked into Ice Beam. Although I found that Occa berry is pretty useless, since I'm never hit by Fire attacks lol.Grrr, I'm mtr12, not "that guy".
The reason I used Dialga is that I wanted to only test one variable (Ninjask) rather than two (Ninjask and BP Scizor). Aldaron or someone had used the Dialga set I list below successfully during previous Ninjask tests, so I made Dialga a control.
Scizor is perfectly viable, though, because he's pretty solid in Ubers. The idea of an extended Baton Pass chain in Ubers hasn't really been explored, but its worth a shot.
Here is the Dialga set I (re)used.
Dialga @ Lum Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 6 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Bulk Up
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
---
You could try fitting in Draco Meteor somewhere if you were inclined to do so, I guess. Probably over Stone Edge, but then Lugia will be troublesome. To tie this back to the topic at hand: If you use Draco Meteor, Draco Plate becomes a viable item because you fit the criteria of having 2 STAB moves of the same type.
Focus Energy doesn't stack... and I believe it doesn't stack with Lansat either, incase you'd try to use both.
Shell Bell might be usable on a Pokemon using recoil attacks a lot, to take the edge off the recoil and increase survivability. The recoil from most such moves drops from 33% to 21% of damage dealt, and if the attacker's doing decent damage and has fairly low max HP it'll give more healing than Leftovers. But I'm not sure recoil attacks are used much anyway. And unfortunately the recoil comes first, meaning if it KOs the Shell Bell is no help.
I really want to use Enigma Berry Whiscash, but it hasn't been implemented yet. Part of this is just me wanting to use Whiscash in general, but whatever.
Firstly, Enigma Berry restores HP when hit by a super-effective attack. Whiscash is obvious Grass bait and this could help get up an extra Dragon Dance or what have you. The second reason I like the sound of this is that Enigma Berry yields a Bug-type Natural Gift with 80 base power, allowing you to nail Celebi (and various others) hard after you've DD'd on the switch. Because of Whiscash's natural bulk, it seems to me entirely possible that one could also DD in the face of something like Cresselia or Slowbro and dent (or even OHKO if you have enough boosts) it enough to eliminate it from the game soon after.
Firstly, Enigma Berry restores HP when hit by a super-effective attack. Whiscash is obvious Grass bait and this could help get up an extra Dragon Dance or what have you. The second reason I like the sound of this is that Enigma Berry yields a Bug-type Natural Gift with 80 base power, allowing you to nail Celebi (and various others) hard after you've DD'd on the switch. Because of Whiscash's natural bulk, it seems to me entirely possible that one could also DD in the face of something like Cresselia or Slowbro and dent (or even OHKO if you have enough boosts) it enough to eliminate it from the game soon after.
Expert Belt Tyranitar is certainly one of the most effective "unorthodox" item pokemon I've used. So many times with CB you wish you could just swap attacks, but now you can avoid being set up bait, and can also fry all the damn steel types that try to kill you.
Actually, I think Focus Energy does stack with Lansat.
However, Super Luck+Scope Lens+Night Slash on Absol is essentially a 50% crit rate.
Shell Bell is a good idea. But it unfortunately does not heal all the damage that recoil does, which is why Shell Bell is not commonly used :(
How is the berry going to help after you get hit by a 4x SE attack?
Enigma berry heals after the SE damage is done.
Now why does Mamoswine have to be fast to bluff a choice item? Icicle Plate boosts the power of Ice Shard/Avalanche, which both aren't concerned about speed. Earthquake does, but you could be bluffing a choice band. Although your opponent can see the difference in damage between Icicle Plate EQ and CB EQ, you should be spamming Ice Shard.
While I agree with your premise that Mamoswine should not run Icicle Plate, I can't agree with your logic as to why not. I'd say the reason is because it has Life Orb as an option, as it doesn't take sandstream damage and his moves don't hit much for SE so Expert Belt is relatively worthless. Meanwhile, a pokemon like Infernape often carries Close Combat AND Mach Punch, while getting hit by SS, so a Fist Plate is preferrable over Life Orb.
Well, the thing is, Mamoswine usually gets only one turn on the field, since because of his low speed it is easy to outpace and defeat him with whatever, and because of his shallow movepool, countering him isn't difficult. Therefore, since he gets about one turn in play at a time, he makes a great choice user, so he should be played as such.
This is just a question here...a thought:
With the elemental plates, one of the supposed effects of these is the fact that dual-type Pokemon will become single-typed (to the type of the plate), if already of the plate's type. Is there any scenario where a dual-type Pokemon could either remove a weakness, or otherwise fake out an opponent, by becoming single-typed during a battle? Would this make 4x effective attacks against some guys drop down to 2x effective attacks (say, Tyraniter 2x vulnerable to fighting moves with a plate by becoming either single Dark / single Rock type) with a plate?
Of course, dual-types also provide significant benefits...lack of STAB on the attacks that might be the "lost" type might be a detriment to this...but was just wondering about this.
With the elemental plates, one of the supposed effects of these is the fact that dual-type Pokemon will become single-typed (to the type of the plate), if already of the plate's type. Is there any scenario where a dual-type Pokemon could either remove a weakness, or otherwise fake out an opponent, by becoming single-typed during a battle? Would this make 4x effective attacks against some guys drop down to 2x effective attacks (say, Tyraniter 2x vulnerable to fighting moves with a plate by becoming either single Dark / single Rock type) with a plate?
Of course, dual-types also provide significant benefits...lack of STAB on the attacks that might be the "lost" type might be a detriment to this...but was just wondering about this.
Elemental plates don't make pokemon with more than one type have only one type. Elemental plates only change the type of Arceus.
Then perhaps the Smogon strategydex on items should be re-worded; that's kind of what it sounded like.