In this case for vgc you're limited entirely to kalos dex only mons. So things like landog, Togekiss, etc were completely unavailable this vgc. Hence why I said chesnaughts performance is entirely irrelevant
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Topic of the Week #12 - Shielding Moves
- Thread starter Audiosurfer
- Start date
Chesnaught resists both of Landoge's common moves and while it fears Air Slash from Kiss, that doesn't make it unviable. It could seriously dent Heatran too with STAB Hammer Arm.
It's got the same typing as Breloom, with more bulk. It's got some very cool resists, and very good coverage, plus Powder Immunity. I could see it functioning as a RainRoom Sweeper quite easily. Plus, Spiky Shield, while not OMGAMAZE, is still fairly good considering 1/8th HP adds up over time.
I was just listing examples of mons that were completely unavailable this vgc regardless of how well/poorly they fare against chesnaughts. Case and point being that since that the options you were limited to this vgc are so much more restricting than it is for a smog doubles that it is completely unfair to state that ones performance in vgc 2014 is an accurate representation of its current performance in smog doubles. Though you clearly seemed to have missed that point.
Now that we've gotten through the pointlessness of the argument, can we agree that Spiky Shield isn't totally awful since it's Protect with an added benefit, regardless of who actually gets it?
The move is decent, though the users suck.
Protecting moves are a huge ballache to play around. That is why we need to bow to our feint overlords. Feint is actually a pretty damn cool move but it has some really poor distribution. I stuck the best users at the top of the post and I'm now going to list why Feint is a great option for each of them.
Mega Pinsir is not a mega you can just slap on any team, however, I do feel that it has an important role to play in Doubles. Aerialate gives Pinsir some serious power on it's main STAB, Return / Frustration as well as based Feint. Feint sits in the same priority bracket as Extremespeed and that makes it pretty useful at times as Pinsir can pick off weakened threats. Flying-type Feint lets you hit the Ghost-types that regular Feint cannot and that is important as without it, Pokemon like Chandelure, Aegislash and Gengar can become more annoying to take out. It also hits Fighting-types like Hitmontop or Conkeldurr; Grass-types like Skymin and Bug-types like Volcarona for good damage.
Scizor has two sets as far as I'm concerned. Swords Dance with Bullet Punch and Bug Bite or Feint with Bullet Punch and a Bug-type STAB. Scizor weilds Feint well thanks to it's ability to force the usage of Protect with the threats of Bullet Punch, this lets you make #plays to eliminate key threats from the opposing team. Feint also gives Scizor utility if it gets burned which happens fairly often considering it's a real threat to a lot of teams.
Hitmontop forces Protect in a similar way, Fake Out forces Protect like no other move and Hitmontop can utilise this fact and make a ballsy play by leading with Feint. Obviously there will be times when Fake Out is more appropriate but the use of Feint can put you in a really favorable position. Trick Room setters that aren't Ghost-type are notorious for using Protect in an attempt to avoid Hitmontop's Fake Out.
So yeah, with good prediction, you too can beat those dastardly protection moves
I wish I'd saved more replays of this team, this one hardly does Feint justice but it's all I have ;_;
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoubles-83195030
WOW FEINT, SAVED ME, BEST MOVE, NEW META
EDIT:
I actually totally forgot to read the other posts before I dived in myself and I have to say, I'm kinda shocked at the way you've regarded Quick Guard. Whilst none of you have said it's bad for obvious reasons, I feel it's been a little overlooked. I've had great fun and success through the usage of Quick Guard Terrakion, especially combined with Bisharp. Obviously I made the post in the CCAT thread but here it is again as a refresher:
Hiroshima (Terrakion) @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Rock Slide
- Close Combat
- Quick Guard
- Protect
Oda Nobunaga (Bisharp) @ Life Orb
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Knock Off
- Iron Head
- Protect
Ability: Justified
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Rock Slide
- Close Combat
- Quick Guard
- Protect
Oda Nobunaga (Bisharp) @ Life Orb
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Knock Off
- Iron Head
- Protect
This lead is particularly potent against common Trick Room leads. Many people think that Cresselia and Scrafty is a surefire way to get Trick Room up early game but these two take a beating from Terrakion and Bisharp. Nine times out of ten Scrafty sees the defiant boost and targets Bisharp with a Fake Out, Terrakion's Quick Guard prevents this and Bisharp uses the free turn to take out Cresselia. It's honestly really solid and you should try it if you're skeptical.
The replay I posted with Feint actually shows how handy Quick Guard is too.
Also, who doesn't like one turn forfeits?
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoubles-83543419
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Darkmalice I had a complete mind blank and couldn't think of any other super effective contact moves oO ttars crunch is a good one. I know kanga should definitely be using sucker punch there. I had other stuff planned out to talk about with kings shield (in particular how it doesn't mind burns that much due to running special sets, and the usefulness of reverting to shield form), but fsr I managed to completely forget about them :/ now everyone else has covered it all in detail
I'd like to talk about the move Imprison: If the opponents know any move also known by the user, the opponents are prevented from using it.
It's a sneaky and lesser seen way to play around your opponents attempts to scout or waste turns of weather/TR with Protect and Detect
Three of the best users of the move in my opinion are Landorus, Gardevoir and Chandelure as all 3 of these mons tend to cause switches allowing them to snipe in there with Imprison and make life all of a sudden more difficult for their opponents.
Not only that, they all carry powerful and common moves moves which can not only shut down their opponents defenses with Imprison, but also their Offenses, allowing their allies to reap the benefits of not having to deal with pesky Rock Slides or Heat Waves.
Other notable users of Imprison could be Meowstic-M and Klefki to give it the prankster treatment and shut down your opponent's support options along with the all important Protect move.
This post was inspired by Truce's team: http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...mpetition-round-3-ensue.3494914/#post-5077937
The elegant use of Imprison Lando-T was a real eye opener for me and Imprison is definitely a move I consider these days when building a team.
It's a sneaky and lesser seen way to play around your opponents attempts to scout or waste turns of weather/TR with Protect and Detect
Three of the best users of the move in my opinion are Landorus, Gardevoir and Chandelure as all 3 of these mons tend to cause switches allowing them to snipe in there with Imprison and make life all of a sudden more difficult for their opponents.
Not only that, they all carry powerful and common moves moves which can not only shut down their opponents defenses with Imprison, but also their Offenses, allowing their allies to reap the benefits of not having to deal with pesky Rock Slides or Heat Waves.
Other notable users of Imprison could be Meowstic-M and Klefki to give it the prankster treatment and shut down your opponent's support options along with the all important Protect move.
This post was inspired by Truce's team: http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...mpetition-round-3-ensue.3494914/#post-5077937
The elegant use of Imprison Lando-T was a real eye opener for me and Imprison is definitely a move I consider these days when building a team.
Typical BlankZero, never admitting that he's wrong ._. comparing VGC 2014 to SmogDubs is like comparing apples to oranges u_u!
Spiky Shield is actually not a direct upgrade from Protect as most users seem to think it is; it's +3 priority as opposed to +4 meaning that it is in the same priority bracket as Fake Out, which happens to be one of the most common moves you'd be trying to shield yourself from. Furthermore, given that both of the users are kinda slow (64 and 75 Base Speed), they'd be outsped by most common Fake Out users anyway. And wrecked. Given what GREAT defensive typings Chesnaught and Smeargle have, it's unlikely that your opponent will be hit by Spiky Shield more than once anyway; furthermore taking into consideration the fact that 1/8th really isn't a lot in general I don't think it's worth sacrificing reliability for such a relatively small and probably unimportant return.
edit: oh dear i was wrong, spiky shield is also +4 priority. ie this entire post is useless hahahaha!!! zzz
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The issue with Imprison is that it is hard to justify giving up a slot for it unless you can afford to give up a moveslot easily. But if you don't have difficulty giving up a slot for it, it's good.
Landorus-T only needs EQ, Rock Slide / Stone Edge, and Protect to function; it has room for Imprison. Mega Gard only needs Hyper Voice and Protect, and also has room. They make good Imprison users. Chandelure is different as it really needs Heat Wave, Shadow Ball, TR, and Protect. The utility of all those moves well outweighs that of Imprison, particularly with Chandelure's easily exploited weaknesses and lack of bulk.
With Meowstic-M and Klefki, there is a large opportunity cost with using Imprison and Protect, having to give up other moves that can make better use of Prankster and/or a coverage move in the event that they get Taunted. And that's two moves you have to give up for the Imprison + Protect combo, as Meowstic-M and Klefki don't need Protect as badly as other Pokemon, partly because they're support Pokemon, partly because Prankster means they are likely to use a move before being KOed that turn (as opposed to a Pokemon being outsped and KOed before it uses a move). It's a waste of their potential.
Using a Pokemon solely for Imprison to block Protect is also a questionable use of time. You have to use a move (and a moveslot) to use it up before the
opponent can not use Protect, and keep that Pokemon in play. It puts your opponent one turn ahead of you. You could use a Feint user instead, who doesn't put you a turn behind, as Feinting a Protect has effectively made the Pokemon that use Protect wasted their move. The difference between Imprison + Protect for the sake of blocking Protect and Landorus-T's Imprison in Truce's team is that Imprison was also being used to negate Rock Slide and EQ for its teammates, which by coincidence were Landorus-T's favourite moves. Whilst I said Mega Gard was good at using Imprison, its common attacks other than Protect are not common enough to affect most battles by Imprisoning them. So it is not as a good as a Imprison user as Land-T. Though it would be viable to have a set of Hyper Voice, Imprison, TR and Protect to block both TR and Protect in order to counter TR teams - yeah I know sets like STAB, Imprison, TR and Protect are generally not good, but those were on Pokemon like Bronzong and Dusclops who hit for little damage with their STABs and did nothing outside of Imprison and TR; Mega Gard can still be Mega Gard and spam Hyper Voice for high damage.
Btw Haruno , I linked that team because it was the best team that made use of Chesnaught. Even though it is VGC, the reasons that it was being used still applied to Dubz - ability to OHKO Kang whilst not being KOed by Fake Out + Return, Grass-type to switch into and resist Rotom-W's STABs, Taunt to stop TR.
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