Project Research Week: SM PU Edition - Week 16 (Poliwrath and Ludicolo)

What would you like to see for next research week?

  • Challenge Week (read rules if you don't know what I mean by this)

    Votes: 3 60.0%
  • Regular Week

    Votes: 2 40.0%

  • Total voters
    5
  • Poll closed .
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I chose to build with mesprit this week. I tried a couple different things and came up with something pretty standard, but it worked well so who cares.

The first set I wanted to try was a choice specs future sight set, the idea being to use future sight and then switch into a bulky breaker like choice banded mudsdale and force the opponent to choose if they wanted to resist the choice specs future sight or the choice banded earthquake/heavy slam.

Mesprit @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe / 4 HP
Modest Nature
- Future Sight
- Psychic
- Dazzling Gleam
- Shadow Ball

Psychic for immediate STAB damage, gleam for dark types like skunk and absol, shadow ball for other psychics. I feel like there's potential in this idea, but in practice it didn't work well so I scrapped it.

The team I had success with was built around bulky calm mind mesprit and scarf jynx, the idea being to use mesprit to break psychic resists so that jynx can sweep.

The team:
https://pokepast.es/09f54a1e0627c9ec

Guzzlord is a bulky dark resist that takes advantage of passive pokemon, I found myself primarily using guzzlord as a breaker on this team. Charizard with dragon dance and firium-z as a late game sweeper, skuntank to defog, and piloswine as another bulky pivot. I like this team alot, because it has multiple pokemon with sweeping potential. Calm mind mesprit has a field day against more passive teams and against more offensive teams I can choose either Charizard or Jynx to sweep with and play recklessly with the other.

Due to the more offensive nature of this team I rarely swept with mesprit, often I was using it to break walls with calm mind. I could afford to play more recklessly with mesprit, switching it in frequently to force psychic resists to come in and take hazard damage before hitting them with a boosted dazzling gleam or pivoting to guzzlord to fire off a draco meteor. I'm ending research week around number 25 on the ladder with this team.

I found it really difficult to build around mesprit because it's capable of doing so much. I approach research week hoping to maximize the potential of a particular pokemon by building a team around it, but mesprit acts more like a glue and fills whatever role the team needs. This team has some issues, a weakness to piloswine and swanna and to some extent skuntank, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

I was underwhelmed by mesprit because I was hoping to have it be the star of the show, but in terms of breaking down psychic resists so jynx could sweep it did a phenomenal job.

Replays:
Room tour finals versus Sixes stall team:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-629536595

Dark type removed turn 3:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-629485788

Mesprit does something:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-629811262

Played another research week team, dark type removed and jynx sweeps:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-629114013
 
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I chose mesprit because it's one of my favorite mons from gen 4 and with it just dropping to the tier i already had a multitude of teams built w/ it, just needed to test them out. The team i had the most fun with was this one: https://pokepast.es/eb65cb660a067515

Set Name: Stop it, Skuntank!
Mesprit @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Levitate
Happiness: 0
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Dazzling Gleam
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Psychic

I found that max hp max speed with dazzling gleam/HP ground to hit guzzlords and Skunks the best set that lets Mesprit do what it want. Colbur is to live a hit from these nasty dark types in order to get up a CM or hit it with coverage move. Catching dark types on the switch in is so satisfying. I also think that Signal Beam > Dazzling gleam would work too in order to beat opposing Mesprits but I did very little testing w/ that. Other option is Fairy/Bug Z but I already had Z-Me First Pinsir on this team. Leftovers are nice for recovery but imo colbur should be run in the wake of all these nasty skunks and cats.

Team Members:
The team also features one of my favorite PU mons Type: Null. RestTalk Type: Null is a scary mon that almost never dies if the opponent isn't running Knock Off/Taunt. Once the opposing team is devoid of ghost types this thing can set up and sweep. W/ base 95s across the board (barring speed) and access to eviolite it's one of the bulkiest mons in the tier. Sp Def evs are weird and don't do anything specific but give me peace of mind that I can probably live special hits from something somewhere and it'll save me from losing.

Skuntank was put on to pursuit trap ghosts that give Type: Null and Mesprit trouble and defog. Nasty freakin skunk is everywhere and is probably the best mon in the tier right now.
Weezing paired nicely with Skuntank and handled fighting types for Null. Max HP max Sp Def cuz i'm a rebel.

I like using aggron so i put it on for rocks and doing some heavy slamming shenanigans.

Z-Me First Pinsir resists fighting and then does some meme-y shit where if it's faster and the opponent uses an attacking move it uses the z move version of that move. So I especially like using it on Crustles to OHKO them and get +2 speed and +1 attack and then watch them click x.

overall impressions of Mesprit....
It's a great mon. base 105s across the board w/ 80 hp and 80 speed and its movepool make it quite versatile. It can set rocks, it can CM and sweep, it can be a bulky choice specs user, it can be a fast (ish) specs user, it can be a scarf user, there's so many things it can do. I'm kinda sad I didn't test more sets but I kinda hit gold w/ this first team (at the time i'm writing this i made it to 26th on the PU ladder w/ this team at 1376 points). It was fun playing a game of "who's winning" w/ Has Tattoos.
replays:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628936119
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628938248
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628942651
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628943991
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628948118
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628950383
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628957107
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628963474
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-629105699
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-629104692
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-630516426
 
I chose mesprit because it's one of my favorite mons from gen 4 and with it just dropping to the tier i already had a multitude of teams built w/ it, just needed to test them out. The team i had the most fun with was this one: https://pokepast.es/eb65cb660a067515

Set Name: Stop it, Skuntank!
Mesprit @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Levitate
Happiness: 0
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Dazzling Gleam
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Psychic

I found that max hp max speed with dazzling gleam/HP ground to hit guzzlords and Skunks the best set that lets Mesprit do what it want. Colbur is to live a hit from these nasty dark types in order to get up a CM or hit it with coverage move. Catching dark types on the switch in is so satisfying. I also think that Signal Beam > Dazzling gleam would work too in order to beat opposing Mesprits but I did very little testing w/ that. Other option is Fairy/Bug Z but I already had Z-Me First Pinsir on this team. Leftovers are nice for recovery but imo colbur should be run in the wake of all these nasty skunks and cats.

Team Members:
The team also features one of my favorite PU mons Type: Null. RestTalk Type: Null is a scary mon that almost never dies if the opponent isn't running Knock Off/Taunt. Once the opposing team is devoid of ghost types this thing can set up and sweep. W/ base 95s across the board (barring speed) and access to eviolite it's one of the bulkiest mons in the tier. Sp Def evs are weird and don't do anything specific but give me peace of mind that I can probably live special hits from something somewhere and it'll save me from losing.

Skuntank was put on to pursuit trap ghosts that give Type: Null and Mesprit trouble and defog. Nasty freakin skunk is everywhere and is probably the best mon in the tier right now.
Weezing paired nicely with Skuntank and handled fighting types for Null. Max HP max Sp Def cuz i'm a rebel.

I like using aggron so i put it on for rocks and doing some heavy slamming shenanigans.

Z-Me First Pinsir resists fighting and then does some meme-y shit where if it's faster and the opponent uses an attacking move it uses the z move version of that move. So I especially like using it on Crustles to OHKO them and get +2 speed and +1 attack and then watch them click x.

overall impressions of Mesprit....
It's a great mon. base 105s across the board w/ 80 hp and 80 speed and its movepool make it quite versatile. It can set rocks, it can CM and sweep, it can be a bulky choice specs user, it can be a fast (ish) specs user, it can be a scarf user, there's so many things it can do. I'm kinda sad I didn't test more sets but I kinda hit gold w/ this first team (at the time i'm writing this i made it to 26th on the PU ladder w/ this team at 1376 points). It was fun playing a game of "who's winning" w/ Has Tattoos.
replays:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628936119
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628938248
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628942651
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628943991
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628948118
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628950383
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628957107
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-628963474
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-629105699
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-629104692
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-630516426
WE TIED CALL IT A DAY
LOL we both did pretty well though. And nearly identical mesprit sets, which is interesting
 
I also tried this set:
Mesprit @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Psychic
- Dazzling Gleam
- U-turn

Still max hp max speed colbur but more support role w/ rocks and U-turn because I built the team around Band Aggron.
https://pokepast.es/a72c8143b0fa30dd

Didn't have quite as much success w/ this team because Eel is kinda bad. Probably would switch it for scarf Evire.

Band aggron because i wanted to click Head Smash.
Mesprit to set rocks while resisting fighting.
Skuntank because Skuntank.
Z-Articuno because I refuse to believe the mods when they say Articuno is bad. Also it's super bulky and hard switches into almost every fighting type (without rock coverage) and ohkos/ deals a ton of damage w/ modest z hurricane or sets up an agility and can sweep teams that are unprepared for offensive articuno.
Poliwrath to both resist rock and soak water type attacks for aggron while also providing some more priority and utility in burn chance from scald.
Eel because another levitate mon and u-turn user to help get in Aggron safely. I think if my other team hadn't done so well I would've played with this team more and changed it a bit but that Type: Null team might be one of the greatest teams I've ever built. (and now it's on the forums :'( unfort.)

EDIT: forgot replays
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-630305225
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-630037094
 
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So, ChrystalFalchion wins this week as RW Tats, and RW McG used their alts they used for the previous week. Sorry if this wasn't stressed enough, but you must use fresh alts every week. Congratulations to Chrystal Falchion for winning (technically by default)!

Thoughts
While I didn't get any Alolan Dugtrio posts, even though I think it's a really underrated Pokemon in the metagame, I thought it was very solid with some of it's sets. The sets which I used where Life Orb 3 Attacks with Memento and Sub Toxic. 3 Attacks Alolan Dugtrio could break for teams with it's EdgeQuake coverage while also supporting a different sweeper such as Charizard or SD Zangoose with Memento. While it wasn't super powerful I believe it's speed tier is what makes it good being able to outpace a lot of the unscarfed meta which allowed to reliably set up Mementos. Sub Toxic was very nice because no types that are immune to Toxic switch into Dugtrio besides Weezing which is why Sub can come in handy. Substitute essentially means you wall Weezing unless it's a Flamethrower variant which aren't as common with Klinklang being banned. It's typing also came in handy with Key resists to Normal, Flying, and Rock, as well as being immune to Electric. Sub Toxic in general is just able to take advantage of bulkier teams and dismantle their cores. Mesprit is a tried and true Pokemon, but with it's wide movepool there seems to still be room for innovation. Has Tattoos used which Specs with Future Sight which definitely seemed like a cool idea since it could force switches often and also break resists. Calm Mind coupled with HP Ground and a Colbur berry seemed like a great idea to lure in Skuntanks to either weaken or kill it. Now onto what everyone is really waiting for!


WEEK 3
Abomasnow and Combusken have been chosen as the Week 3 Pokemon. Good Luck to all of those who participate!
(more posts tell your friends!)
E: Forgot that the ladder reset sorry guys! MRcoolGUY886 is the winner since he had a higher GXE than tats
 
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Ill take Abomasnow. Alt RW2 Blade

Sorry I forgot to make a follow up post. Dugtrio-A is a surprisingly effective revenge killer / late game cleaner. I ran 2 sets - one with Life Orb and one with Darkinium Z and Memento. Both were pretty good but I had better results with the Life Orb one - it's quite weak without it.
 
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yogi

I did not succumb...
is a Tutor Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Hey!

I wont be laddering because I don't hate myself that much, however I did want to give a brief summary of how I think these mons are in this meta n_n


Now, I really like Combusken as a mon, I think it's unique in its access to Speed Boost and a nice move pool to boot; however, in the current meta I don't think it's nearly as good as it was last gen, in NU or PU. Losing access to Baton Pass hurt its viability quite a lot in my opinion, as it no longer has the option to both pass speed and pivot out of undesirable situations, which was what it was best at when Baton Pass wasn't banned. Along with the Seventh Generation also came the several threats the crushed how good Combusken was in NU after the ban, in Mesprit, Lanturn and Weezing; along with things like Granbull and Qwilfish dropping from ORAS RU. This wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that all of these, barring Granbull, are common, splashable mons in the current meta. Combusken also falls short in the power department, having things like Magmortar (which has better coverage and faster speed turn 1), Charizard (which is one of the best Fire types in PU) and Pyroar (which has an almost unresisted STAB combo) to fill the role of a special attack better than it; then you its more unique Physical set which would be a lot better if not for the fact that it only really has access to one strong STAB move in Flare Blitz, and having to do with Low Kick as its STAB Fighting option. All in all, I don't feel like Combusken is very good, but it's certainly a fun mon to mess around with on some archetypes like SpikeStack and Webs.


This mon on the other-hand is actually really good at the moment. Basically unresisted STAB and the ability to run a mixed set really carves out Abomasnow as a good breaker and threatens balance teams. It currently has multiple good sets including Choice Scarf, Mixed Attacker and the less common SD Physical Set, all of which fulfil a role or niche when used. However, not everything is good for Aboma. In a meta full of strong of strong fire types and hazards, Aboma is forced out a lot and takes residual damage all the time due to it, especially from both SR and Tspikes, which really hurts its usability unless you have good hazard support throughout the game. Overall though I think Aboma is rather underappreciated currently and more people need to use it.
 
Haven't tried Combusken yet, but Abomasnow is proving useful. The mixed Life Orb set is by far the best IMO: Swords Dance is done better by Shiftry while Pokemon weak to all hazards don't make for good Scarf users. If you must go Choice, use Specs - Blizzard, Giga Drain, Focus Blast and Hidden Power Fire.

Haven't got that high on the ladder yet, as its full of stupid troll teams that keep catching me out. They also haven't realised that badly poisoning something with Synchronize is really stupid, if the user isn't immune to Poison.
 
ima give this thread 2 more days so that hopefully we can get a couple of posts :). Whoever wins gets a free team of whatever core they want it's a lame prize but i'm broke.
 
So in my usual fashion I made a weird team and it worked out actually pretty well. I did all of my laddering immediately after research week began and then life happened. I went 21-3 with this team, peaking at number 25 on the ladder (at the time) at 1404.

Combusken set:
Combusken @ Eviolite
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Flare Blitz
- Sky Uppercut
- Thunder Punch

This is basically the first Combusken set I tried, and it was successful so I stuck with it. The only real innovation I've done here is put thunder punch over protect. This both helps and hinders combuskens utility. I was seeing a lot of swanna on the ladder and it hard walls standard fighting/fire coverage combusken. You sacrifice the guaranteed speed boost by not using protect. Also, combusken really needs to run a jolly nature or it doesn't outspeed base 95's at +1, which is trash garbage. Because I sacrificed protect here there were A LOT of games where I'd get into a sticky situation and nominate combusken as the least useful member of the team and sack it. I only really got one good sweep with combusken in my 24 games. I think a memento user would really help combusken get more sweeps, so perhaps a memento skunk would've fit better onto the team I built.

The team:
https://pokepast.es/77cd47452265ef34

I figured combusken would be a late game sweeper, so I wanted strong breakers to help it sweep. Combusken doesn't like bulky waters like lanturn and lanturn gives guzzlord the freest of switches, so specs guzzlord. Basculin with the choice band wears down physical walls so combusken can sweep. I went with something of a taunt spam on this team. Taunt weezing with a little speed to outrun other weezings and prevent toxic spikes, and taunt shuca berry Aggron. Aggron doubled as another breaker, wearing down physical walls with head smash. At this point the team lacked speed and had no hazard removal, and I wasn't about to rely only on taunt to keep hazards off. So scarf komala. It caught quite a few people off guard and secured me a few key kills.

Here's some replays:
JK apparently the replay server is shit.

My overall impression of combusken is that it's bad and you shouldn't use it. Even at +1 speed it's super slow and it really struggles to get KO's without a swords dance, but it's so difficult to find opportunities to get up a swords dance because it's so frail. It has to either run special and risk missing fire blast/focus whiff, or run physical and take recoil damage and risk missing sky uppercut. In my 24 games I think I missed a sky uppercut about once every 3 games, at which point combusken would become fried chicken and I'd have to win using a more reliable pokemon like basculin.

While I was laddering I played against a hardcore hyper offense team with combusken, kadabra, and haunter. I feel like combusken would function much better on a highly offensive team, where after a teammates death it can get a KO and a speed boost at the same time.violite Ability: Speed Boost EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe Jolly Nature - Swords Dance - Flare Blitz - Sky Uppercut - Thunder Punch
 
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The winner of week three is . . . Has Tattoos congratz! PM on PS, Discord, or Smogon and I'll build a team around whatever you'd like n__n.

Thoughts
Overall I believe people had more success with Abomasnow rather than Combusken. Although I didn't see anyone talk about Combusken's best set which is the Special set with Life Orb or Fightinium Z. I really like this set since it's able to do at least half to a lot of the common fighting checks being Mesprit, Granbull, Weezing, Qwilfish, and Golurk. This can be great on Fighting spam as well as functioning as a cleaner if it can get +2 speed. Abomasnow is what people really seemed to like finding success in Scarf, Mixed, and SD sets. Choice Scarf can function as a suprise revenge killer while Mixed can suprise supposed checks like Magmortar. SD which is what I personally think is the worst set isn't even that bad as Ice, Grass, and Ground coverage is suprisingly hard to switch into. Now . . . onto week 3!

Week 4

This weeks options are Absol and Drampa to Pokemon I haven't seen much as of late probably because of the rise of Alolan Raticate and Guzzlord.​
 

EviGaro

is a Member of Senior Staffis a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnus
RU Leader
RW3 PU Main

Taking Absol because I choked with Drampa in UnOpen lulz

Edit because I'm the worst: Don't register when you're dead tired because you'll forget your password. It's ok I picked RW3 Tired Pu Main and this one is foolproof bop.
 
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