Resource Battle Stadium Singles Series 2 Analysis Discussion

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Theorymon

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Ah yes, the new season is upon us, and soon, we'll be up to our head in TIME PARADOXES! Before we party like we just killed Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid 3 though, lets go over how we'll handle Series 2!

- Of course, we will be covering Series 2, but analyses won't be open until February 7th!

- This doesn't mean you'll be left in the dark though: we have some sample sets up for Paradox Pokemon already.

- Also, we're currently converting a LOT of Series 1 analyses to take Series 2 into account! This will have mostly the same writing, but mention the new relevant threats of the metagame.

- You'll notice some very slight differences in how analyses are handled, such as more labeled bullet points to make things easier to update.

- For those of you who still have Series 1 analyses in the works: fret not, THEY WILL still be uploaded! They will also get a Series 2 conversion as well, provided the Pokemon isn't dramatically different in Series 2.

Please suggest any additions or changes in this thread, to help us keep up with the rapidly developing new metagame!

You can check out what the dex currently has here.
 
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Theorymon

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I think Thunder Wave definitely deserves a mention on the Encore support set. It's a top 3 used move according to Home data and I believe the most common set is Encore / Stealth Rock / Thunder Wave + Attacking move. Basically an alternative to the support Tinkaton commonly used in last series.

Not really sure how good this is but for Loaded Dice Iron Thorns I have seen Tera Bug + Pin Missile.

Thanks for all the hard work. Really appreciate it.
 

Theorymon

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I think Thunder Wave definitely deserves a mention on the Encore support set. It's a top 3 used move according to Home data and I believe the most common set is Encore / Stealth Rock / Thunder Wave + Attacking move. Basically an alternative to the support Tinkaton commonly used in last series.

Not really sure how good this is but for Loaded Dice Iron Thorns I have seen Tera Bug + Pin Missile.

Thanks for all the hard work. Really appreciate it.
I fully agree with the Scream Tail thing, I'll add that in when I get home!

As for Iron Thorns, yeah Pin Missile does seem to have decently high usage, though I'm not really an expert on Iron Thorns. I'll def bring it up with QC right now though!
 

Theorymon

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I think Thunder Wave definitely deserves a mention on the Encore support set. It's a top 3 used move according to Home data and I believe the most common set is Encore / Stealth Rock / Thunder Wave + Attacking move. Basically an alternative to the support Tinkaton commonly used in last series.

Not really sure how good this is but for Loaded Dice Iron Thorns I have seen Tera Bug + Pin Missile.

Thanks for all the hard work. Really appreciate it.
Sorry taking so long to implement this, got blasted by bad weather yesterday, and I sorta just slept it off lol.

Anyways: I've added a SR support set that is more akin to Tinkaton onsite, and I've also slashed in Pin Missile, Tera Bug, and Ice Punch on Iron Thorns!
 

Theorymon

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Hello everyone! It's been about 2 weeks since we've started up analyses. Since then, some changes have been made directly to the dex to keep things up to date! Usually, I'll sweep through the dex during the weekends, but this time it took longer due to this being a new series and all that!

Move changes

- Reflect has been added to Espathra's Speed Passer set, and Hypnosis has become Other Options.

- Aqua Jet is now mentioned in CB Dragonite's Other Options.

- Shadow Ball is now slashed in on offensive Rotom-W.

Item Changes

- Heavy Duty-Boots is now a slash in on Extremekiller Nite, and Silk Scarf is now a mention instead.

- Air Balloon is now on Magnezone.

- Punching Glove is now mentioned on Bulk Up Annihilape.

Tera Changes

- Added Tera Ghost to Rotom-W's offensive set.

- Added Tera Fire to Baxcalibur sets, and Ground to Sweeper. Tera Dragon is also only a mention now.

- Tera Water is now the main slash in for Magnezone.

- Gholdengo's Teras were reordered to reflect the current metagame, all of them are still at least mentioned though.

- Tera Poison is now on the bulkier Annihilape sets.

- Tera Ground is now on offensive Sylveon.

Stuff to discuss

In the interest of transparency, I'm actually gonna talk about stuff we might want to consider adding or changing here, so even non QC members can contribute now!

Garganacl

Currently, we have Curse and Earthquake slashed in on the first set. It's a way to mess with Substitute Gholdengo (and Covert Cloak to an extent), and it's certainly an established thing. What I'm wondering is, should we split this off as its own set, or keep them slash ins?

Dragonite

So as some of you may know, popular player Iroha shared a 4 Attack Dragonite set with Sharp Beak and Aqua Jet. It has had a slight impact: Aqua Jet actually shows up on usage stats now LOL. I already made it other options on CB, but I'll be testing the Sharp Beak set as well. If it works, Im thinking we either make the CB set into a "4 attacks set", or we could maybe spin it off into its own set...

Tinkaton

I think Bulldoze is worth a mention, its extra speed control and also hits Iron Moth hard. Im not sure if it should be a slash in yet though.

Bellibolt

There's been a slight uptick in Bellibolt usage, probably because its a pretty nice AV Pokemon right now! However, I think we might want to reorder the slashes. Specfically: I think it should have Acid Spray as a primary option because Skeledirge is just WAY too common, and Sucker Punch should be a primary slash in because it punks a lot of Focus Sash mons. So something like this:

[SET]
name: Tactical Bellibolt
move 1: Parabolic Charge
move 2: Volt Switch
move 3: Acid Spray / Tera Blast
move 4: Sucker Punch / Tera Blast / Chilling Water / Muddy Water
item: Assault Vest
ability: Electromorphosis
nature: Modest
tera type: Fairy / Grass / Electric
evs: 228 HP / 28 Def / 180 SpA / 44 SpD / 28 Spe

Discharge would be a strong other options mention (if only the smogon dex made 5 moves look prettier lol). Mud Shot is probably worth some other option mentions too. Bellibolt can't really take advantage of speed control that much, but its handy for teammates, and it hits Iron Moth and Glimmora really hard too!

Gengar

I think Gengar's set ordering could use a bit of an overhaul, making Encore not 100% needed, and the focus being on Destiny Bond instead (akin to Iron Valiant). The big thing is, Icy Wind really needs a slash in, because it can REALLY mess with some of the faster sash stuff like Flutter Mane. Here's what I'm thinking the set could look like:

[SET]
name: Disruptor
move 1: Shadow Ball
move 2: Encore / Icy Wind
move 3: Sludge Bomb / Icy Wind / Dazzling Gleam / Focus Blast
move 4: Destiny Bond
item: Focus Sash
ability: Cursed Body
nature: Timid
evs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
tera type: Normal / Fairy / Flying

Additionally, Choice Scarf Gengar is OK. I would not object to adding that to low priority for analyses.
 
I think Dragonite's Sharp Beak should be a different set rather than a slash-in for Choice Band, main reason being that being able to change up attacks makes maneuvering the two sets fairly different. Choice Band is more to destroy bulky switch-ins like Dondozo and opposing Dragonite with well-timed Outrages/high powered attacks, whereas I imagine Sharp Beak is more "do a lot beat at least one Pokemon"

Garganacl's Curse should be a separate thing for a similar reason Imo. The way it plays is fairly different in comparison to the normal CureProtect afaik

I honestly think for Bellibolt that Sucker should be a secondary slash-in, but I'm not too sure on that end, I think its moreso preference. More often than not I think Tera Blast is more valuable though since Bellibolt just has a hard time hitting Ground Pokemon, so rather than a specific Sucker Punch, a coverage option for them seems more valuable. I think Tera Water also deserves a mention in that regard with Muddy Water
 

Theorymon

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So before I go nuts with adding new stuff by combing through the top teams tomorrow (sorry, been playing too much Kirby, Metroid, and watching my brother play the new Yakuza lol, in addition to laddering a lot!), a few things on my mind:

* There's been a Dragon Tail Dragonite set going around that takes advantage of SR + Spikes, something like Dragon Tail / Roost / Earthquake, with the last slot being a total grab bag of moves, everything from Extreme Speed, Aqua Jet, Substitute, etc. I'm thinking this should be covered, but I haven't really seen it around yet despite hearing that its crazy good. If anyone has a more concrete set or experience with it, let me know and I'll put it up for reservation!

* I know Bronzong was making the rounds on top teams, and it seems pretty legit. It sorta seems like Orthworm except its not weak to fighting in exchange for an unfortunate dark and ghost weakness, but also much better special bulk than Orthworm, and trading Shed Tail for Trick Room. Oh and of course, that Gyro Ball power making it quite a bit less passive! I haven't seen it in action yet, but I'll be looking around for what the top teams were using so we can cover it! But if anyone knows it now, feel free to post it in this thread!
 
Some trends I noticed while browsing teams from last month. Subseed Breloom is usually Tera Water or Tera Fire in order to deal with Icicle Spear from Baxcalibur. EV spreads are all over the place with everything from max bulk to max speed. As for movesets depending on how hard you want to play to the 20 min timer, some sets even opt to run Protect. Toxic is a cool tech option to circumvent Tera Grass from stuff like Dondozo, but can be hard to fit since you probably have to cut Spore.

Many Fire Spin trapper Dragonites began running Earthquake / Iron Head over Draco Meteor. I believe it is to not be as weak to Flutter Mane.

4 attacks Iron Valiant with Focus Sash is a popular set. Usually running something like
-Close Combat
-Spirit Break / Moonblast
-Knock Off
-Shadow Sneak

I think it could be somehow incorporated into the existing Destiny Bond sets since they play pretty similarly.
 

Theorymon

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Some trends I noticed while browsing teams from last month. Subseed Breloom is usually Tera Water or Tera Fire in order to deal with Icicle Spear from Baxcalibur. EV spreads are all over the place with everything from max bulk to max speed. As for movesets depending on how hard you want to play to the 20 min timer, some sets even opt to run Protect. Toxic is a cool tech option to circumvent Tera Grass from stuff like Dondozo, but can be hard to fit since you probably have to cut Spore.

Many Fire Spin trapper Dragonites began running Earthquake / Iron Head over Draco Meteor. I believe it is to not be as weak to Flutter Mane.

4 attacks Iron Valiant with Focus Sash is a popular set. Usually running something like
-Close Combat
-Spirit Break / Moonblast
-Knock Off
-Shadow Sneak

I think it could be somehow incorporated into the existing Destiny Bond sets since they play pretty similarly.
These are now all implemented in some way! Breloom as you know I did pretty rapidly, the other two required some slight retooling.

For Iron Valiant, its first set is now "physical attacker" with Knock Off as the 2nd slash-in with Destiny Bond. I also now have a bullet point that compares Moonblast and Spirit Break! I also moved the Swords Dance set down to the bottom, it's clearly pretty rare.

As for Dragonite, I retooled the "Defensive Encore" set into "Encore Trapper", since not only do we now have defensive Dragon Dance as a set, but there's a serious chance the Dragon Tail Dragonite going around might need its own set too, so I felt like this one needed to differentiate itself more from the other defensive Dragonites. Thunder Wave got pushed down to Other Options mainly because of Earthquake and Iron Head, but it's still mentioned.

I also removed Dragon Claw from CB Dragonite, because let's get real if you're using a Dragon-type STAB on that, you're going to use the one that can 2HKO Dondozo!

Tera Normal and Fairy are also now slashed in on defensive Dragonite.

Finally, while I've been a bit slow this week due to some real life stuff, if anyone wants to help with this season's changes, I suggest looking at Rotoporotal's collection of high ranking Japanese team blog posts, since they're a good snapshot at metagame developments! You can find their aggregation of top ranking teams here: https://www.rotoportal.com/roto/home

Admittedly I haven't gotten too far in it yet, beyond it reinforcing Tox 's thought of "we might need to mention more bulky Flutter Mane spreads" lol. But if anyone sees anything in particular they feel should be brought up on the dex from these high ranking teams, feel free to post them in this thread!
 
with hippowdown dropping heavily in usage, it seems worth to reanalyze the current ev spread reccomended for the Bellibolt set! it currently recommends 28 speed EVs which I'm not sure is useful for anything else besides hippowdown.

I don't currently have a reccomendation as I don't know if there's a better spread out there to match the current state of the metagame, but I just put all the speed EVs into special attack and it's working fine :)

I could totally be wrong tho and hippowdown is more prevalent than I think, but with muddy/chilling water being a slash in, there's no point in running those speed EVs without it
 
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While reading the corviknight analysis, I noticed an error under the bulk up set with covert cloak and mirror armor. It states that it punishes flutter mane for using mystical fire, but due to covert cloak making you immune to the spa drop, mirror armor will not activate.
 
Now that I think about it, Baxcalibur's Dragon Dance set (or sweeper in the analysis) should probably have Steel as a Tera Type slotted in. Tera Steel DD Bax became pretty popular to my knowledge for its strength into Flutter Mane
 

Theorymon

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While reading the corviknight analysis, I noticed an error under the bulk up set with covert cloak and mirror armor. It states that it punishes flutter mane for using mystical fire, but due to covert cloak making you immune to the spa drop, mirror armor will not activate.
lol shoot, dunno why I didn't get highlighted Xenforo... Anyways, good catch! Corviknight needed some updates anyways, so in addition to fixing this, I also made Espathra more relevant to the BU set, slashed in Sitrus and Leftovers on that set, and replaced Leftovers with Sitrus on Iron Defense. I also slashed in U-turn too, because that's a thing.

Now that I think about it, Baxcalibur's Dragon Dance set (or sweeper in the analysis) should probably have Steel as a Tera Type slotted in. Tera Steel DD Bax became pretty popular to my knowledge for its strength into Flutter Mane
Last I checked Steel was a bit below Tera Fire which was #4 in usage... but its certainly good and I do agree with it being a slash in! It was already mentioned, but I rewrote it because somehow it did not mention Flutter Mane lol.

with hippowdown dropping heavily in usage, it seems worth to reanalyze the current ev spread reccomended for the Bellibolt set! it currently recommends 28 speed EVs which I'm not sure is useful for anything else besides hippowdown.

I don't currently have a reccomendation as I don't know if there's a better spread out there to match the current state of the metagame, but I just put all the speed EVs into special attack and it's working fine :)

I could totally be wrong tho and hippowdown is more prevalent than I think, but with muddy/chilling water being a slash in, there's no point in running those speed EVs without it
I'll tag Butch Hardnight here. Hippowdon is certainly still around, but we probably should have a spread that doesn't try to outspeed Hippowdon regardless.
 
i think it's worth still being the primary set, looking quickly at the (known) top 30 teams for last season hippowdon featured on 7 of them. it's also still 21st in usage, according to pokemon home, so i don't think it's fair to say it's dropping that heavily.

i'll have a look at the spreads tomorrow morning as it's about 1am now, and see if i can find any worthwhile uses for the extra 28 ev's and i'll share any new spreads i come up with.
 
for a bulkier bellibolt option, you could forgo the speed and defense and use something like,

Bellibolt @ Assault Vest
Ability: Electromorphosis
Level: 50
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 228 HP / 156 SpA / 124 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Parabolic Charge
- Tera Blast
- Volt Switch
- Acid Spray

this will let you survive 2 hydro pumps from timid specs iron bundle, letting you switch in and then take the next one. if you're removing speed all together, you could also opt for quiet 0 iv for better switch initiative.

another alternative to the original spread is taking what's leftover and putting it in defense. special attack doesn't really get you anything extra of note, but if you dump it all into defense you survive jolly choice band (or +1) dragonite earthquake.

Bellibolt @ Assault Vest
Ability: Electromorphosis
Level: 50
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 228 HP / 52 Def / 180 SpA / 44 SpD / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Parabolic Charge
- Tera Blast
- Volt Switch
- Acid Spray

the 4 leftover in speed is just there because otherwise it would be wasted otherwise.

also, Theorymon, i think it's worth including in the damage calcs that the 228/44 av survives 2 moonblasts from timid specs flutter.
 
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