Format Discussion Past Gens Random Battle Sets

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

Welcome to the Past Gens Random Battle Sets thread! We're accepting suggestions or reports on sets for past iterations of Random Battle, from RBY to SM.

What should be posted here?
- Accurate reports or screenshots of objectively bad movesets, ability synergy, items, et cetera.
- Suggestions on moves or items to add to (or remove from) Pokemon, backed by good reasoning.

Please do not post:
- One-liners. This includes suggestions without any backup reasoning.
- Complaints of illegal Pokemon or sets.
- Posts complaining about unfairness, demanding certain Pokemon should be "banned" from the format, or complaining about hax.
- Screenshots of movesets that are not actually bad.
- Gen8 suggestions, which should instead go here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pokemon-sword-shield-random-battle-sets.3656537/
- Doubles suggestions, which should instead go here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pokemon-sword-shield-random-doubles-battle-sets.3663063/

Important details about Random Battles that affect set effectiveness and generation!
- All Pokemon have 85 EVs in every stat with a neutral nature, unless 0 Atk EVs/IVs and 0 Spe EVs/IVs would be beneficial. In these cases, the rest of the EVs are still 85 and the nature is still neutral.
- The set generation is random and runs on an algorithm. Sets will not be identical from match to match, and some sets may be slightly better than others; this thread is only for reporting unviable/undesirable sets. If you want the same few sets every time, you should play Battle Factory instead!
- Unreleased Pokemon and abilities and illegal move combinations are allowed in Random Battles.

You can find all Pokemon info here: https://www.smogon.com/dex/
You can find all Random Battle sets here:

RBY | GSC | ADV | DPP | BW2 | ORAS | USM​

 

[satvik123]

Making the first post here and this is about GEN6 and proposing some changes
bulkup", "acrobatics", "knockoff", "rest", "sleeptalk", "superpower", "tailwind"<-- this is the current move pool of regular tornadus and you can roll rest talk tailwind acro which is a completely useless set. making torndaus either special(Which is better imo) or removing rest talk entirely seems like a better option since it does not have the bulk to risk sleep talk roles. also adding defog to its moveset would be nice.

Cloyster can often generate expert belt and that is pretty self explanatory its offensive coverage is bad and it cant make use of it you would much rather have lefties if you are spiking, sash if you are lead or white herb if you are shell smash

regular Groudon cant currently roll precipice blades but Kyogre can roll origin pulse if that is not intentional adding precipice blade would be nice

removing dragon claw from the moveset of rayquaza would also be nice since there isnt a really a case when you want to use it v create/ draco meteor is better for nuking with locking and equake is good coverage on DD

Adding defog to vespiquen more utility

Making drifblim CM it currently runs a sub sitrus(sometimes red card) set without any set up its kinda weak so CM would be really nice
Add defog to regular giratina, origin can roll it but regular is more bulky so it might be better with it
Normal shaymin cant roll hidden power ice so it kinda gets walled by flying types since non stab air slash doesnt do much. adding hp ice would be nice

there are other sets that i cant remember at the top of my head will edit them in later
(sorry for bad grammar english isnt my first language)

EDIT1: Rest talk spiritomb should always be pressure(Not sure if possible) its trying to stall an gain multiple boosts pressure helps with that

 

[Colteor]

Dont think I need to explain why Solar beam with no sun is bad. Omastar had rain dance, is there an issue with generating multiple weather setting moves or can solar beam+sunny day not be guaranteed?

 

[Irpachuza]

View attachment 299152
Dont think I need to explain why Solar beam with no sun is bad. Omastar had rain dance, is there an issue with generating multiple weather setting moves or can solar beam+sunny day not be guaranteed?

This is a known bug, along grass types not rolling stab. Will be solved as soon as we can

 

[Colteor]

Im back with more gen 3 questionable sets, i have images for all of these but i don't want to make a super long post so if you need proof just ask me.

Magcargo with Flamethrower/Fire Blast/Toxic/Yawn. All of these moves are good on Magcargo, but rolling two status inflicting moves is weird and so is two fire moves. Maybe have HP grass be mandatory and add self destruct as an option for the last slot to threaten special walls/fire resists.

Some calcs for self destruct

Lvl 88 84 Atk Magcargo Self-Destruct vs. Lvl 80 84 HP / 84 Def Blissey: 561-660 (104 - 122.4%)
Lvl 88 84 Atk Magcargo Self-Destruct vs. Lvl 80 84 HP / 84 Def Regice: 170-200 (65.6 - 77.2%)
Lvl 88 84 Atk Magcargo Self-Destruct vs. Lvl 82 84 HP / 84 Def Charizard: 200-236 (76.6 - 90.4%)
Lvl 88 84 Atk Magcargo Self-Destruct vs. Lvl 82 84 HP / 84 Def Dragonite: 171-202 (60.4 - 71.3%)
Lvl 88 84 Atk Magcargo Self-Destruct vs. Lvl 88 84 HP / 84 Def Hitmonchan: 184-217 (79.6 - 93.9%)

Breloom with HP ghost/Mach punch/Sub/SD. Breloom is really frail, not that fast (although mach punch helps) and it has a lot of weaknesses, so I don't like SD on it since it wont get a lot of chances to set up and do much. In general, spore seems like it should be mandatory since its, well, spore. Sky uppercut as an option for a strong stab that doesn't require sub would be nice. Can't really comment on leech seed since I haven't seen it yet but it seems really bad if you don't have sub, and okay if you do. TLDR I suggest adding sky uppercut and mandatory spore, removing SD and leech seed.

I haven't seen an objectively flawed Moltres set yet, worst was Flamethrower/Wisp/Sub/Morning Sun, but that's just how rands works sometimes. Still I'm not sold on Toxic and Sub being in it's movepool, especially over other options. I would like those gone and if you really want more moves then something like Roar (counters set up/pinch berry mons, fairly common in this format), Sunny day (niche, but gives really strong stabs and messes with weather setters+ potential team support) or even Agility (sweeps late game with already good special attack, bulk and good 2 move coverage).

Edit, I'm not very familiar with randbats code, so sorry if any of these are impossible suggestions or something.

 

[Colteor]

short gen 5 post, Swoobat should have simple 100% of the time (and CM for that matter, although I think that is guaranteed.) It had unaware in this replay, and while it's a good ability, Swoobat's set is obviously meant to get huge CM boosts with simple. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5randombattle-1252909335 (turn 15)

 

[MaharajaInfernape]

In Gen 6 Random Battles,

1. Why does Arceus-Rock get Stone Edge rather than the absolutely better move Judgement which has same power but much more accuracy? This particular thing has happened with me twice till now. I have seen that Judgement is there in the moveset. So it is better just to remove Stone Edge from its set.
2. I think Slack Off is must for Calm Mind Mega-Slowbro. But I got it with no recovery move as can be seen below.
   
3. I has also happened that my opponent got an Arceus-Bug with X-Scissor instead of Judgement, similar to point no. 1.
   
4. I got an Ambipom as the following screenshot shows. I think Life Orb + Fake Out set is much better than this Choice Band set because it seems like to be unviable because of its quite low Base Stats.
   
5. I think Luvdisc and Unown at Level 88 are unviable. Unown should at least be at Level 100.
6. I got an Assualt Vest + V-Create Victini. I think Blue Flare is better in the Assualt Vest set. V-Create should only be run in Choice Band/Scarf set.
7. I think the Levels are given to the Pokémon in Random Battles in such a way that all Pokémon are more-or-less equally viable. But White Herb + Shell Smash Carracosta, despite not being broken, is highly viable as once it gets an opportunity to use Shell Smash, it becomes very difficult to check/counter. Hence, in my opinion, its Level must be lowered.
8. The case of Cloyster with Expert Belt without Shell Smash is just the opposite i.e. unviable.

I may add more points into this post if I can.

 

[Colteor]

Currently wish/protect/hp dark/moonlight Umbreon is possible in gen 3, and it is garbage and likely unintentional. Just completely passive with 3 moveslots for healing, and one weak attack. I think this is because if it rolls wish, protect is forced, and so is stab, leaving one slot that is then either toxic or moonlight. simply not allowing wish + moonlight on the same set seems like an easy fix that doesn't mess with anything else. (replay for proof, go to the end https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3randombattle-1263140337)

 

[Lunar Sloth]

I got a Houndoom in gen 4 with no fire stab, and NP + sucker punch. I feel like sucker should only be possible if NP isn't present.

 

[El químico del pueblucho]

I got a Houndoom in gen 4 with no fire stab, and NP + sucker punch. I feel like sucker should only be possible if NP isn't present.

I feel like this set is good if u facing some cm mons or if houndoom isn't fast enought to ko the opponent, but is only my opinion

 

[Lunar Sloth]

I feel like this set is good if u facing some cm mons or if houndoom isn't fast enought to ko the opponent, but is only my opinion

I'm fine with sucker punch in general on it, but it doesn't fit with NP, especially not over fire stab.

 

[El químico del pueblucho]

I'm fine with sucker punch in general on it, but it doesn't fit with NP, especially not over fire stab.

Yeah i feel too that hp grass need to don't appear on these cases

 

[El químico del pueblucho]

Btw can we remove hp ground in bellosoom sets, is just not good as hp rock, and u'll prefer that move aganist better qd user(mostly bug types) and hp ground doesn't cover that mon too well, only is to "beat" steel and poison types, but it can't is just too weak vs these mons.
EDIT: Forgot to mention in gen7

 

[The Immortal]

I got a Houndoom in gen 4 with no fire stab, and NP + sucker punch. I feel like sucker should only be possible if NP isn't present.View attachment 310836

Gen 4 needs an overhaul which will be done at some point in the near future.

 

[El químico del pueblucho]

Yes make this don't roll Flame Orb(gen5randbats)

 

[El químico del pueblucho]

Non sofboiled blissey is weird to have

 

[Colteor]

Why do the Lati twins not run soul dew with ubers leveling in gens 3-6? Other mons like Giratina O and Arceus forms run their unique items just fine so I'd be surprised if it's a coding issue. I don't think I have to explain why soul dew is better than the specs and LO sets they can get currently. About the only advantage I can think of is using trick on something that hates being choiced, but imo that's not a big enough advantage over the free calm mind boost from soul dew. You would obviously have to reduce their levels (probably closer to those of strong ubers mons) since otherwise they would just destroy everything, but I think that would be the best option for their viability.

 

[El químico del pueblucho]

Can we get more types of hp on unown sets idk if that would make unown better but it would be funny to see that a scyther was one hit ko by an unown? Also a proposal to remove stealth rock on arceus, i'm not saying srocks are bad but def is so dissapoiting to see that u got a really good luck into get an arceus just to see one of its moves is srocks and yes u got non boosting arecus or one with no coverage. Well these are 2 ideas for gen5 rands

 

[Fifty Shades of Rez]

Suggested sets for Gen 5 randbats

Meganium

Your eyes do not decieve you, this is offensive Meganium;
With servicable 82 Attack that can be complimented by either ChoiceBand or LifeOrb, great bulk making him a good tank, Synthesis to offset recoil from LifeOrb, and great coverage in Earthquake and Outrage, Meganium can be a decent wallbreaker that can put good chip damage on enemy teams, allowing for his teammates to wreak havoc.

Liepard (Thanks for Celever for pointing out that Swagger is banned in Randbats, as well as suggesting the HP change!)

This Liepard set utilizes her Prankster ability to the max; Trick a LaggingTail onto an enemy, lock them onto a move or paralyze them, and as they switch out, hit them with a double-power Pursuit.

This Liepard set utilizes her most overlooked ability: Unburden. With Protect, you can scout an opposing move, and maybe switching out, either by a direct switch or by U-Turn, courtesy of her great Speed. However, if you decide to stay in, you'll be able to paralyze the opponent's with ThunderWave, which will be guaranteed thanks to FocusSash, which will activate Unburden after consumed. After the Unburden boost, Liepard would outrun anything, allowing her to get a last trick by using KnockOff to take the opponent's item down with her.

The only change I suggest for this Liepard set that currently does exist in the format is replacing Leftovers for Black Glasses, to trade in longevity for even more power, which could be useful considering her rather low Special Attack base stat of 80.
*Additionally, Celever pointed out that with HP Fighting, Liepard will have much better neutral damage than with HP Fire, so this should be taken into consideration as well.

This set is identical to the previous one, but this time utilizing Pursuit to take advantage of opponents switching out, as well as U-Turn to grab momentum on the switch if the situation is undesirable.

 

[Celever]

View attachment 321747
View attachment 321748
Your eyes do not decieve you, this is offensive Meganium;
With servicable 82 Attack that can be complimented by either ChoiceBand or LifeOrb, great bulk making him a good tank, Synthesis to offset recoil from LifeOrb, and great coverage in Earthquake and Outrage, Meganium can be a decent wallbreaker that can put good chip damage on enemy teams, allowing for his teammates to wreak havoc.
View attachment 321749
View attachment 321750
Here are some nasty Liepard sets utilizing her Prankster ability to the max; Trick a LaggingTail onto an enemy, lock them onto a move or paralyze them, and as they switch out, hit them with a double-power Pursuit. The second set makes Liepard infuriatingly annoying to take down, utilizing Substitute, ParaFusion hax with Swagger, and FoulPlay to take advantage of the suffering enemy in front of you, turning their strength against them as they are unable to hit Liepard.

Offensive Meganium is much worse than its current sets. 82 attack is serviceable on some Pokémon, but Meganium has a very bad offensive movepool that cannot make up for its mediocre attack. Seed Bomb is actually the same BP as Outrage with STAB -- only 120, which is terrible when you consider that something that gets STAB on its 120BP move is then actually firing off 180BP attacks. These moves are also bad because they don't really hit anything super effectively. Between all of its moves, it is able to hit Dragon-, Water-, Steel-, Rock-, Ground-, and Electric-Type Pokémon super effectively and that's all, which is not good coverage at all and means that Meganium will continue to be very weak over the course of the battle. Its current support-based set is pretty good, or at the very least the best that a Meganium can do.

Liepard also has a nice set right now, using Encore to create set up opportunities for itself with Nasty Plot, Thunder Wave to cripple lots of Pokémon on the opponent's team, and Dark Pulse with coverage so it's not just walled by Steel-Type opponents. Trick with a Lagging Tail is actually awful, because paralysis actually quarters an opponent's speed anyway, so tricking a Lagging Tail to an opponent is just a worse version of paralysing it with Thunder Wave because there's no chance of them being fully paralysed. Furthermore, dedicating a Pokémon to crippling just one opponent (because once the Lagging Tail is already tricked, it's gone and you can't do it again) is a waste of a teamslot because you're dedicating one of your Pokémon to just making one of the opponent's Pokémon worse, after which point your own Liepard becomes even more useless than whatever you just tricked the Lagging Tail to. You're right, however, that Swagger + Thunder Wave is Liepard's best set. Unfortunately, random battles aims to have each Pokémon act as it would in the tier that it is in in a given generation. For Liepard, that's NU, and in NU, Swagger is banned in Gen V. So Liepard can't have Swagger in random battles either unfortunately. Unless I'm missing something, though, Liepard should probably have its Hidden Power type changed from Fire to Fighting in Gen V. It provides much better neutral coverage with Dark Pulse, right?

I got that you were talking about Gen V because of the sprites you showed in teambuilder, but in the future you should probably say what generation you're talking about for clarity. Particularly from Gen VI and onwards, the models are the same so you can't tell.

 

[Fifty Shades of Rez]

Offensive Meganium is much worse than its current sets. 82 attack is serviceable on some Pokémon, but Meganium has a very bad offensive movepool that cannot make up for its mediocre attack. Seed Bomb is actually the same BP as Outrage with STAB -- only 120, which is terrible when you consider that something that gets STAB on its 120BP move is then actually firing off 180BP attacks. These moves are also bad because they don't really hit anything super effectively. Between all of its moves, it is able to hit Dragon-, Water-, Steel-, Rock-, Ground-, and Electric-Type Pokémon super effectively and that's all, which is not good coverage at all and means that Meganium will continue to be very weak over the course of the battle. Its current support-based set is pretty good, or at the very least the best that a Meganium can do.

Liepard also has a nice set right now, using Encore to create set up opportunities for itself with Nasty Plot, Thunder Wave to cripple lots of Pokémon on the opponent's team, and Dark Pulse with coverage so it's not just walled by Steel-Type opponents. Trick with a Lagging Tail is actually awful, because paralysis actually quarters an opponent's speed anyway, so tricking a Lagging Tail to an opponent is just a worse version of paralysing it with Thunder Wave because there's no chance of them being fully paralysed. Furthermore, dedicating a Pokémon to crippling just one opponent (because once the Lagging Tail is already tricked, it's gone and you can't do it again) is a waste of a teamslot because you're dedicating one of your Pokémon to just making one of the opponent's Pokémon worse, after which point your own Liepard becomes even more useless than whatever you just tricked the Lagging Tail to. You're right, however, that Swagger + Thunder Wave is Liepard's best set. Unfortunately, random battles aims to have each Pokémon act as it would in the tier that it is in in a given generation. For Liepard, that's NU, and in NU, Swagger is banned in Gen V. So Liepard can't have Swagger in random battles either unfortunately.

I got that you were talking about Gen V because of the sprites you showed in teambuilder, but in the future you should probably say what generation you're talking about for clarity. Particularly from Gen VI and onwards, the models are the same so you can't tell.

I thought Randbats was treated as a different tier, and thus I gave Liepard Swagger... Thanks for pointing out! On the topic of Meganium, his Earthquake also trashes two of his weaknesses, being Poison and Fire, not to mention Meganium is already a good inviter to Heatran and many other Fire types, so the surprise factor on the switch would be very effective; The argument for Outrage is valid, though it does help Megan hit unsuspecting Xatu and Alakazam that thought they would switch on a LeechSeed, as well as SapSipper Pokémon like Azumarill, Bouffalant and especially Sawsbuck.

 

[Celever]

I thought Randbats was treated as a different tier, and thus I gave Liepard Prankster... Thanks for pointing out! On the topic of Meganium, his Earthquake also trashes two of his weaknesses, being Poison and Fire, not to mention Meganium is already a good inviter to Heatran and many other Fire types, so the surprise factor on the switch would be very effective; The argument for Outrage is valid, though it does help Megan hit unsuspecting Xatu and Alakazam that thought they would switch on a LeechSeed, as well as SapSipper Pokémon like Azumarill, Bouffalant and especially Sawsbuck.

Due to how coding for randbats works, there cannot be a surprise factor. Each Pokémon gets its set from a pool of moves, and so Meganium could only be offensive or defensive. Otherwise, if its pool of moves was let's say your Seed Bomb, Earthquake, Outrage, Double-Edge, with Leech Seed, Synthesis, Toxic, Reflect, and Light Screen, then sometimes a Meganium would be rolled with Seed Bomb / Outrage / Double-Edge / Reflect holding a Leftovers, or Seed Bomb / Double-Edge, Leech Seed, Light Screen with Light Clay, or so on. So in order to make Meganium offensive, it could only be offensive and lose its status moves, which then means the opponent knows that something like Skarmory 100% walls anything Meganium can do and can just switch that in instead, or even anything remotely bulky. Not to mention that even the uses you pointed out are too weak in practice:

Lvl 88 84 Atk Choice Band Meganium Outrage vs. Lvl 84 84 HP / 84 Def Bouffalant: 107-126 (36 - 42.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Lvl 88 84 Atk Choice Band Meganium Outrage vs. Lvl 82 84 HP / 84 Def Azumarill: 124-147 (41.6 - 49.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Lvl 88 84 Atk Choice Band Meganium Outrage vs. Lvl 86 84 HP / 84 Def Sawsbuck: 130-154 (46.7 - 55.3%) -- 72.7% chance to 2HKO

These EVs and levels are used by the random battles calculator to calculate damage in a real Gen V random battles game. In random battles, levels are determined by what tier a Pokémon is, and all EVs are set to 84 in everything with a neutral nature.

Here's a guide on how generating random battles sets works if you were interested in knowing more :)

 

[Fifty Shades of Rez]

Due to how coding for randbats works, there cannot be a surprise factor. Each Pokémon gets its set from a pool of moves, and so Meganium could only be offensive or defensive. Otherwise, if its pool of moves was let's say your Seed Bomb, Earthquake, Outrage, Double-Edge, with Leech Seed, Synthesis, Toxic, Reflect, and Light Screen, then sometimes a Meganium would be rolled with Seed Bomb / Outrage / Double-Edge / Reflect holding a Leftovers, or Seed Bomb / Double-Edge, Leech Seed, Light Screen with Light Clay, or so on. So in order to make Meganium offensive, it could only be offensive and lose its status moves, which then means the opponent knows that something like Skarmory 100% walls anything Meganium can do and can just switch that in instead, or even anything remotely bulky. Not to mention that even the uses you pointed out are too weak in practice:

Lvl 88 84 Atk Choice Band Meganium Outrage vs. Lvl 84 84 HP / 84 Def Bouffalant: 107-126 (36 - 42.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Lvl 88 84 Atk Choice Band Meganium Outrage vs. Lvl 82 84 HP / 84 Def Azumarill: 124-147 (41.6 - 49.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Lvl 88 84 Atk Choice Band Meganium Outrage vs. Lvl 86 84 HP / 84 Def Sawsbuck: 130-154 (46.7 - 55.3%) -- 72.7% chance to 2HKO

These EVs and levels are used by the random battles calculator to calculate damage in a real Gen V random battles game. In random battles, levels are determined by what tier a Pokémon is, and all EVs are set to 84 in everything with a neutral nature.

Here's a guide on how generating random battles sets works if you were interested in knowing more :)

Hmm... Well damn, I actually did not know it could mix like that
Though seeing that the post has already been read by people, I suppose it's too late to stop the wheel from rolling.. I'll remember that for next time, thanks mate!

 

[El químico del pueblucho]

As a suggestion, can we fill some incomplete teams in mono random of old gens(specially in gsc) with ditto, and in case of dragon : ditto+3 water, ghost:ditto+3 darks?

 

[AV Cosmoem]

Rolled a Venusaur with no Grass STAB, is this supposed to happen?