Telepathy

[evan]

[SIZE=+2]Telepathy in the VGC/Multi Battle Metagames[/SIZE]​

Telepathy is a new ability introduced in Gen 5 with the following functionality:

The Pokémon cannot receive damage from their team-mates in Double & Triple battles

This ability's utility in VGC/multi battle play is obvious from the start. Many of the best attacks in these metagames are those that can hit multiple opponents at once. Unfortunately, some of the best of these can also damage your partners, most notably Earthquake, Surf, Discharge, Lava Plume and Explosion/SelfDestruct. If paired with a Telepathy mon, your Earthquake user no longer has to worry about damaging his partner with his own attack, leaving him free to Earthquake with (relative) impunity.

These mons are currently known to receive Telepathy:
Dream World: Gardevoir, Wobbuffet, Dialga, Palkia, Giratina (Please note that as of this writing information of 5th Gen Dream World abilities is not available)
5th Gen: Oobemu

Of these mons, Wobbuffet stands out as the Pokemon who appears to gain the least from the addition of Telepathy. Shadow Tag is an incredible ability (discussed in further detail here) even in VGC and multibattles. However, with Telepathy, Wobbuffet does not have to worry about Countering or Mirror Coating a partner's attack back at him, allowing the partner to keep firing away at all opponents.

Actually, it is Giratina who gets the least out of its new ability choice. Giratina's fantastic Ghost/Dragon typing already gives it immunity to Explosion/SelfDestruct and resistances to Surf, Lava Plume, and Discharge (although it certainly does not care for the burn and paralysis of the latter two). Giratina's excellent defensive stats (150/120/120) an allow it to take those resisted hits without too much undue stress. The only real benefit Giratina gains from Telepathy is avoiding Earthquakes from the likes of partner Groudon or Metagross. Pressure, however, likely offers more utility in draining the PP of such powerful, and common, attacks like Water Spout and Draco Meteor.

Palkia faces a similar decision as Giratina. In many cases, a smart Palkia VGC player can use Pressure to stall out Draco Meteors aimed towards it with Haban Berry, Protect, or Substitute (or all of the above). However, while Palkia does 4x resist both Surf and Lava Plume (and doesn't mind the latter's burn), it takes neutral from Earthquake and Discharge (and hates the Paralysis of the latter) and is hit by Explosion/SelfDestruct. Of course, it can always protect into any of these attacks, but then you are only attacking with a single mon when your opponent could be attacking with two.

Of the Gen 4 Dragon trio, Dialga stands to gain the most from Telepathy. With a weakness to Earthquake, Dialga is forced to protect if partnered with, say, a Groudon that needs to hit both enemies hard. By protecting, Dialga also loses its ability to attack for the turn, giving the opponent a bit of a break. With Telepathy, all of that goes away and the Groudon can Earthquake away with Dialga by its side firing off Draco Meteors.

This brings us to the two really interesting Telepathy users: Gardevoir and Oobemu. Because I think these are the prime users of the ability, I'll go into a bit more detail, starting with Gardevoir.

Gardevoir info

Base stats (Speed last): 68/65/65/125/115/80

Lv1: Healing Wish
Lv1: Growl
Lv1: Confusion
Lv1: Double Team
Lv1: Teleport
Lv6: Confusion
Lv10: Double Team
Lv12: Teleport
Lv17: Wish
Lv22: Magical Leaf
Lv25: [M505]
Lv33: Calm Mind
Lv40: Psychic
Lv45: Imprison
Lv53: Future Sight
Lv60: Captivate
Lv65: Hypnosis
Lv73: Dream Eater
Lv80: [M500]

[M505]: Psychic Other Power: --- / Accuracy: ---
Heals target 50% Max HP

[M500]: Psychic Special Power: 20 / Accuracy: 100
The more the user's stats are raised, the more powerful.

I make special mention of Gardevoir for really one reason in particular: M505. This attack is like a free Recover... to your partner. Combine this with access to Reflect and Light Screen and you have the perfect multibattle support mon. Alternatively, Gardevoir (like her friend Oobemu below) can run an Imprison set, blocking your opponent from using Protect while your partner Explodes. Of course, this pure support Gardevoir would be Taunt bait and you are sacrificing your second attacker, but the incredible support options of this Gardevoir essentially force your opponent to get Gardy out of the picture ASAP, which Gardevoir can make difficult thanks to her not too shabby (especially on the special end) defenses and access to Wish.

Oobemu info

Base stats (Speed last): 75/75/75/125/95/40


Lv1: Confusion
Lv1: Growl
Lv1: Heal Block
Lv1: Miracle Eye
Lv4: Growl
Lv8: Heal Block
Lv11: Miracle Eye
Lv15: Psybeam
Lv18: Headbutt
Lv22: Hidden Power
Lv25: Imprison
Lv29: [M493]
Lv32: Zen Headbutt
Lv36: Psych Up
Lv39: Psychic
Lv45: Calm Mind
Lv50: Recover
Lv56: [M470]
Lv58: [M471]
Lv63: [M485]
Lv68: [M472]

[M493]: Normal Other Power: --- / Accuracy: 100
Changes target's ability to Simple

[M470]: Psychic Other Power: --- / Accuracy: ---
User averages Defense and Special Defense with target

[M471]: Psychic Other Power: --- / Accuracy: ---
User averages Attack and Special Attack with target

[M485]: Psychic Special Power: 70 / Accuracy: 100
Hits any Pokémon of same type as user

[M472]: Psychic Other Power: --- / Accuracy: ---
All Defense and Special Defense swapped for 5 turns

Oobemu is an incredibly exciting new mon to me. Like Gardevoir he can run an Imprison set to boost the effectiveness of any Exploding partners he may be teamed up with, but, more than that, the new moves he brings to the table are very intriguing. While I don't see too much use in M471, which averages attack stats with the target, M470 could be very useful in weakening opposing mons who may feel like they can stall out the hits from just Oobemu's partner while also giving Oobemu a boost to his survivability in the process (something that is further aided by Recover). Oobemu's new M493 is also very exciting, changing the target's ability to Simple which, in combination with Psych Up, can make Oobemu and his partner both powerful forces to reckon with. Who wants to deal with a now +4 Groudon's Earthquake? Who wants to have to take a hit from a +2/+2 Kyogre and then worry about whether Oobemu is going to be copying the change for itself? While probably likely to be relegated to a gimmick, sometimes these gimmick strategies end up making all the difference in VGC play. The development of Oobemu will be an interesting one to watch as the metagames develop.



In short, Telepathy is one of the best abilities to have in multi battle play. Immunity to your partner(s)' Earthquakes, Discharges, Surfs, Lavaplumes, and especially Explosions/SelfDestructs are what make some Pokemon viable in the first place. The Dragon trio (likely outside of Giratina) will definitely appreciate being able to attack alongside their partners and not being forced to Protect, while Gardevoir and Oobemu can provide unique supporting roles to a team which can make the supporter and not the attacker the primary threat to an opponent.

All of this being said, this thread is for discussion of the potential effects of Telepathy on the multibattle metagames, any particular strategies that stand out as potent to you, whether I have completely misrepresented a mon, etc. etc.

 

[mattj]

No one has replied? Assuming you can get a good Palkia with it, this move could be amazing for Explosion on your team. Sweet Jesus! Along with other useful multitarget moves. I've Critted my Palkia with Kyogre's Surf too many times in VGC 10 :(

Also, the only reason I didn't have Dialga and Trick Room as a backup on my Nats team (Groudon/Shiftry/Gengar/Ho-oh) is because Dialga + Groudon = bad stuff. But this could really help that!

 

[giggity69]

Something like water spout from kyogre with a tele user would be really good, especially if you were able to pack two on the same team.

 

[mattj]

Waterspout only hits your opponents in Gen 4. I'm sure it's the same in Gen 5.

 

[Wildfire]

I think there is one detail you missed about gardevoir. It can learn trick room by tm which was a major strategy to most vgc teams. With a base speed of 80 it outspeeds all ubers (in trick room) that don't have a iron ball or power item which is always usefull. However, setting up trick room lets tyranitar have a huge advantage on a switch in. With a base stat of 61 let's it outspeed gardevoir. Anything gardevoir has to damage it goes to waste seeing that sandstorm gives ttar the 50% SpD boost and gardevoir is a speacially based. That would leave it up to the gardevoir's partner to finish ttar of which is not that easy. It has a healthy 115 SpD stat which lets it wall some moves from palkia and other pokes. Though I don't think it could handle a spout from ogre.

Edit: The majority psychic can learn trick room. Oobemu is also a psychic type. Nintendo likes to follow paterns a lot so like it's other psychic types, Oobemu should also get trick room. ( I obviously like trick room a lot) The downside to Oobemu for me is it's bad defenses. I don't seeing it surving any kyogre surfs or much else.

 

[Synre]

If we end up with a limited ubers format again I'm pretty excited about both the Pokemon you highlighted - telepathy is spectacular enough to warrant a team slot, so it gives us some more non-ubers that we know will carry their weight. TR + Telepathy is a big deal though(yeah Gardevoir !), can imagine a lot of Turn 1/2 TR + Explosions to ensure you get set-up, pending how much you want to pussyfoot around with double protects and that sort of thing to avoid Skarming the first turn.

I'm not so quick to dismiss the uber options, especially if we get to carry as many as we wish, though. They come with the nice benefit of not being there "just" to use telepathy - they're plenty powerful in their own right. I think a lot of why the ability is going to be so good is that you get to play recklessly aggressive with the multiple target attacks without too much negative effect, and doing so with the game's most powerful Pokemon seems like the obvious way to continue the faceroll, there.

Certainly makes Surf Kyogre look a lot better, since even if you aren't wrecking your buddies, avoiding unnecessary damage is always great. I think the one it really opens thing sup for is Groudon, though, since he doesn't have a real single-target Ground-type option, which limited what Pokemon he could work well with last year pretty substantially. He can spam his Earthquakes with reckless abandon this year - even with, say, ground-weak Dialga on his team, which would have been awful last year.

 

[Darkflagrance]

...O.O....
Oh lord...
Just seeing this, when I plan a VGC 2011 team, Gardevoir will almost certainly be on it. Just an incredible ability, along with partner healing. I personally find that very exciting.

What I like about the new abilities and especially the 3v3 battle mode is that they allow for more specialized roles like that gardevoir cleric set.

Pokemon is becoming more like old school 4-person party rpgs.

 

[giggity69]

Waterspout only hits your opponents in Gen 4. I'm sure it's the same in Gen 5.

Oh, my bad. I thought both surf and spout hit everything.

 

[evan]

I did forget Trick Room, I'm sorry. You'd think since I ran a TR team last year I would have this down...

I think Oobemu is much more useful in a TR environment than Gardevoir (assuming it remains a TM and he receives it), as seen in his base 40 speed. I, too, could see him Trick Rooming as his buddy explodes bringing in something marginally faster (read: slower in TR) with a stat up move that gets simpled on the next and then going crazy. Like I said, Oobemu is likely the far more gimmicky Telepathy user, but that is kinda why I love it.

Also, Synre, you're right that I downplayed the dragons getting Telepathy, mostly because I think they are less interesting. Yes, it is fantastic that they can now attack without having to protect on EQs and Explosions, but gimmick are just so much more interesting.

 

[TorchicBlaziken]

Hm... Does this mean that Wobbuffet will not be considered too broken when played in Doubles and Triples and Rotation?

 

[GtM]

A Gardevoir set with Imprision, Protect and some other common moves (like Substitute, or Shadow Ball?) could be really helpful, but it's a shame that Gardevoir will likely have to take two or more hits before it can use Imprison. Bare in mind that Gardevoir also gets Taunt and Encore, which could give it a lot more use support wise. It's a real shame it's not fast though, base 105 speed would have really done it some favours.

 

[Green Thunder]

You forgot the cutesy and sleepy queen of trick room musharna, unlike the others you can catch her with this ability!

 

[DeagleBeagle]

Medicham and Musharna according to serebii, have telepathy too. Might be very useful to use medicham in doubles/triples since it has fake out and HJK, even though protect is kinda common in doubles, you would have to use it wisely, like maybe the turn after the foe protects. (Because I believe protecting always makes their HJK recoil since it doesn't hit, but not sure if I just have got some of the lucky 10% misses while I protected, dunno.)