Resource Union Street - Casual Discussion Thread

[Doduodrio]

Post looking for a free partner in the event, and once you signup is 24 hours old other players who have one challenge can become your partner.

chuckeroo777 I think you have to post in the event thread. I can be your partner if it's been 24 hours if you would like :)

 

[TheEver]

chuckeroo777 (using Mawile and Tyranitar) and I (using Alolan Raticate and Primarina) will try and tackle achievements 11, 21, and 25.

 

[P2X7]

S0L1D G0LD P2X7 You guys think you'll be able to start your run soon? A month's not a super long time to finish an event.

Yeah; I've been unexpectedly busy lately, but there should be no more obstacles to our run once I've ground out a battle or two to purchase the rest of my "supplies."

 

[Maxim]

New Achievements, new Strategy Guide!

Hard Mode Achievements

1. Have 6 or more opponents in the same challenge Faint while your team's active Pokemon are both Asleep, total; and also defeat the Boss Trainers.
2. Have one member of your team successfully execute Focus Punch (or a combination containing it) on 8 of their turns in a row without using any other actions and without failing to act; and also defeat the Boss Trainers.
3. Use no move twice or more with the same Pokemon in the entire challenge, and also defeat the Boss Trainers.
4. Using a team of only Pokemon who qualify to be trick-or-treaters, defeat the Boss Trainers.
5. Using no held items and gaining no HP (via healing or otherwise), defeat the Boss Trainers.
6. Taking no longer than 4 rounds per battle, each battle, defeat the Boss Trainers.

Something to note about these achievements is that they all involve beating the Boss Trainers. This means your team must be able to beat all four of the 4v4 matchups in Hard mode.

1. [Awaiting more consistent plan] Bring 4 Pokemon capable of using Rest and Sleep Talk, and a Sleep move they can use on each other. Waves 1 and 3, the final blows should be dealt while in Rest
2. One player will need to bring a Focus Puncher and a backrow, the other will need to bring 1-2 bulky Pokemon capable of taking hits. The Mega Mawile includes Dazzling Gleam, so make sure to bring Wide Guard or at least Protect. You will need a Metronome, and to plan to take down a Wave between Focus Punches so as to minimize energy loss. Lou confirmed on Discord that there is an enemy with Imprison (Focus Punch) in a later wave, so be on the lookout.
3. Make sure that you do not use any moves twice, so bring Pokemon with wide movepools.
4. Bring the highest statted Trick or Treaters to the boss, and take them down.
5. Utilize Pokemon that require no held items. Make sure not to use Recovery moves or Draining moves during your run. Incompatible with 1, most likely.
6. Speedrun time baby! Bring the strongest Pokemon possible and break the Boss Trainers down.

 

[Doduodrio]

Mowtom Ooraloo and Gemini Taurus got achievement 9

 

[Mowtom]

Posting here to note that Oora and GT have taken on achievement 28, and nightblitz and I have taken on achievement 8.

 

[Maxim]

Looking for a Partner for Season’s Beatings 2022. I am willing to bring a decent selection of Pokemon, including but not limited to Alcremie, Torkoal, and Coalossal.

My goal is to defeat all 5 waves and obtain the Sovereign items. Iceroot Carrot would be nice but I’m treating it as a bonus reward.

Strategy Guide should be going up later tonight.

 

[P2X7]

LouisCyphre, how will the transition from a Stage-based system to a Level-based system that is set occur in the middle of Seasons' Beatings affect the event?

--------------------------
With no intention of preempting Maxim's more comprehensive analysis, I'll say that Fire spam seems like an efficient way to beat the new event. A cursory glance suggests that the best team will probably wind up resembling Ninetales/Necturna/Coalossal/Smokomodo, but anything built to use Forest's Curse or Tar Shot will perform well.

 

[LouisCyphre]

all seasons beatings runs intiated without an event voucher will use gen 8 mechanics. conveniently, such runs are only possible for a finite time.

 

[Maxim]

New Event, new Strategy Guide!

Season's Beatings 2022

The return of a fan favorite event brings yet another two player co-op experience. Much like last year, the objective is to beat up a large, raid-style boss. Last year we just had to beat up a larger than average Delibird and his goons, so what do we have this year?

A Calyrex Ice Rider.

*Gulp!*

Looks like we're gonna have our work cut out for us! Let's get started.

Battle Flow

Before we get into too much detail on how to manage the new boss, let's get into some specifics into how the fight works. This seems to be a little different from last year.

The battle is a 4 versus Boss encounter, with each player bringing two Pokemon. First thing to note off the bat is this rule: "If either trainer has all of their Pokemon fainted, your challenge ends." This means that the boss and his goons only have to faint about 2 or 3 Pokemon before the competition is a loss. Because of this, managing who gets hit with what is going to be very important, lest you find yourself getting knocked out the gate.

Speaking of, let's go over how the boss targeting works. The boss will target each and every Pokémon with an attack, chosen from three options. Which set of three options the Pokémon is liable to get hit by is determined by the Slot it is placed in. What determines Slot placement then? Interestingly, it's going to depend on the order in which the Pokémon give their actions for the round. Additionally, if a Pokemon in a particular Slot has fainted during or before the Round, that Slot gets added to the attacks that Slot 1 takes. This can get a little confusing, so let me give you all an example.

Slot Examples

Let's say we have two Players. Player 1 has Venusaur and Charizard, while Player 2 has Blastoise and Pikachu. We have just started the battle and are on the Opening Phase.

Player 1 posts, ordering.
Charizard: Flamethrower (Calyrex) x2
Venusaur: Sludge Bomb (Caribolt) x2

Player 2 then posts, ordering.
Pikachu: Thunderbolt (Calyrex) x2
Blastoise: Water Gun (Calyrex)~Aura Sphere (Coalossal)

Looking only at the boss's moves. The Boss will then use the following moves in the Round for each action.
Charizard: Slot 1: Glacial Lance / Astral Barrage / Solar Beam
Venusaur: Slot 2: Life Dew / Taunt / Helping Hand (Add)
Pikachu: Slot 3: Taunt / Confusion / Mega Drain
Blastoise: Slot 4: Taunt / Confusion / Mega Drain

Note that if Calyrex rolls Glacial Lance or Astral Barrage here, then all targets will be hit by it as a spread move.

==================

Well, we move onto Round 2, and Player 1 doesn't want Venusaur taking another Glacial Lance to the face. So he works with Player 2 to come up with the following orderset:

Player 1 posts.
Charizard: Flamethrower (Calyrex) x2

Player 2 posts.
Pikachu: Thunderbolt (Coalossal) x2
Blastoise: Hydro Pump (Coalossal) x2

Player 1 then posts.
Venusaur: Earthquake x2

Calyrex starts off with the following orderset.
Charizard: Slot 1: Glacial Lance / Astral Barrage / Solar Beam
Pikachu: Slot 2: Life Dew / Taunt / Helping Hand
Blastoise: Slot 3: Taunt / Confusion / Mega Drain
Venusaur: Slot 4: Taunt / Confusion / Mega Drain

But uh oh! Venusaur's Earthquake does enough damage (somehow, just roll with it) to knock out Pikachu A1 before Calyrex moves! Which means Calyrex's orderset becomes.
Charizard: Slot 1: Glacial Lance / Astral Barrage / Solar Beam AND Slot 2: Life Dew / Taunt / Helping Hand
Blastoise: Slot 3: Taunt / Confusion / Mega Drain
Venusaur: Slot 4: Taunt / Confusion / Mega Drain

Charizard is taking double the attacks now, which is bad news for his health. It's important to keep everyone healthy.

==========================

On Round 3, Calyrex's orderset would look something like this.
Charizard: Slot 1: Glacial Lance / Astral Barrage / Solar Beam AND Slot 4: Taunt / Confusion / Mega Drain
Blastoise: Slot 2: Life Dew / Taunt / Helping Hand
Venusaur: Slot 3: Taunt / Confusion / Mega Drain

So yeah, the ordering can get a little nuts. The adds simply target player Pokémon at random, by the way.

Then we have the phases. There are 4 different phases in total, and you are only eligible for the best tiers of rewards by beating all four of them. To move from one phase to the other, you have to delete Calyrex's HP (or the adds, if you're on the Invulnerable Phase). Per the thread, the phases are:

Encounter Progression

1. Opening Phase: Always the first phase.
2. Middle Phases: Two of these phases occur, chosen randomly. Each Middle Phase can occur only once per encounter.
   1. Invulnerable Phase. Works much like the opening phase, except that the boss cannot take damage.
   2. Leeching Phase. The player team suffers permanent Leech Seed. The boss uses frequent draining moves.
   3. Emperor Phase. The boss attacks while being showered with support moves from an add.
   4. Retaliating Phase. The boss frequently performs Counter, Mirror Coat, and Metal Burst.
3. Enrage Phase: Always the last phase.

I'll go into more detail on these phases in a later topic. The important thing to know right now is the names. A few other notes about the progression before we move onto the next topic:

• Wide Guard and Mat Block only cut some of the incoming spread damage, meaning we're gonna have to get a bit creative on how to prevent and heal damage.
• Boss moves cannot be prevented. No Imprison shenanigans here I'm afraid.
• The Boss's status gets reset after each phase.
• The Adds get deleted if the phase changes. That said, my experience with old raids implies that you will probably need to knock these guys out manually.
• Don't bother bringing any berries, As One comes with Unnerve preventing you from eating any.
• Top shelf rewards are based on the number of combined Recoveries and Chills that you have used throughout the encounter.
• Taking together the adds and the boss HPs, on average your Pokémon will need to deal X damage apiece.

Useful Things to Bring:

Here's a Compendium of useful things that can help make this fight a bit easier. I'll try to add more stuff here as I think of them.

Moves

• Mud Sport: Can drastically reduce the damage taken by Caribolt's annoying spread moves.
• Recovery Moves: You'll want them by the bucket load for this one.
• Sunny Day: Can be useful for dealing massive damage to Calyrex. However it must be used with caution. No, not just because Coalossal has Heat Wave, but because Calyrex actually is packing some fire moves of his own!
• Forest's Curse/Tar Shot: Thanks to P2X7 for this one! These moves can make Calyrex take even more fire damage from your attacks.
• Heal Block: The Boss can still use his healing moves, but will not gain any HP off of it.
• Guard Split: Thanks to ooraloo for this one! 11/11 Defenses got you down? Split them with a low defense Pokemon for easy damage. Note that it only lasts two rounds though.
• Throat Chop: Thanks to ooraloo for this one! Can be used to pre-empt Caribolt's sound moves, particularly Boomburst in Opening.

Abilities:

• Liquid Ooze: Can help cheese the Leeching Phase. As it turns out, Calyrex only uses Draining moves on the Slot 1 target, so using a Liquid Ooze Pokemon can help you do more damage while thwarting Calyrex's plan here.
• Aroma Veil: Calyrex's phases are absolutely littered with Taunt, so having something that can just kind of ignore that is a handy tool to have. Especially against the Retaliating Phase.
• Friend Guard: A valuable tool for keeping the team healthy. Vivillon lovers rejoice!
• Drought: See Sunny Day.
• Flash Fire: If using a Sunny Day strategy, having this on your tank or off-tank can help ensure that you benefit from Calyrex's Fire moves.
• Rock Head: Head Smash and Flare Blitz are both recoil moves that deal significant damage to Calyrex.
• Flame Body: Burns for Calyrex just for hitting you is a nice bonus.
• Forewarn: Having an extra sub can be quite handy, given you're already using most substitutions on moves anyway.

Phases in Detail

WIP. Lou has told me that there are edits coming to the thread, so I don't want to get too in depth just yet until things are finalized.

More to come!

 

[P2X7]

all seasons beatings runs intiated without an event voucher will use gen 8 mechanics. conveniently, such runs are only possible for a finite time.

If I were to start a run after December 16th, does this mean that I would first need to convert my team's profiles back to the Gen VIII system?

 

[Doduodrio]

I'm looking for a partner for Season's Beatings! I will bring Snorlax. Some of my other Pokemon that might be useful for this event are Slowbro, Probopass, Escavalier, Metagross, Sableye(?), and Tyranitar.

 

[shadowpea]

probably a good idea to start looking for partners asap

here is my profile. theres also a snorlax, glalade, and gardevoir waiting to be approved.

 

[Dusk Mage Necrozma]

I'll join shadowpea with my Equilibra and Stratagem

 

[LouisCyphre]

If I were to start a run after December 16th, does this mean that I would first need to convert my team's profiles back to the Gen VIII system?

You would use Gen 8 Pokemon, yes.

Given what TheEver has said about allowing hard maximum of converted Pokemon per round of approvals; we might spend some few days, or up to a couple of weeks, with a mix of Gen 8 and 9 mons. We decided that getting into the new Generation on-schedule was a higher priority than trying to dance around the timing of a giveaway event.

 

[TheEver]

Yeah on that topic, there will be an official announcement about it soon after the Gen 9 data is revealed but currently I'm planning on setting a limit of 15 profiles per post to be converted to Gen 9. This is for two reasons:

1. It gives a chance for everyone to get some of their favourites/most important/most excited to use in the new gen/etc mons into Gen 9, so we can see some battles in Gen 9 start right away.
2. Related, there are a few people with very large profiles. If they were to come through with their entire profile all at once it could clog up the reapproval thread and slow down people getting into Gen 9 battles.

So the process would look like this: post (up to) 15 profiles -> approved -> post (up to) 15 profiles -> approved -> etc until your whole profile is done.

While I think that this is a good way to go about it, I'm not married to the number 15 so if anyone, particularly approvers, thinks a different number is better than please let me know.

 

[Ooraloo]

We should talk about Paralysis (and other forms of action-denial) in Gen 9. It should only take a quick look at some of the ongoing Gen 9 battles to see that the revised Paralysis mechanics have major balance issues. Pokemon who have access to Paralysis inducing moves are basically using them in every matchup.

The fact that Gen 9 Paralysis intensifies rather than decays is probably the biggest problem with it. As a result, a Paralyzed Pokemon will always have at least a 57.8125 percent chance of failing to act each round. This is incredibly oppressive and painfully unpleasant to play through, all for the cost of a single Paralysis-inducing move. Not to mention that these Paralysis-inducing moves set Paralysis with multiple counters to all but guarantee that the opponent will be immobilized during that round, making the use of Paralysis-inducing moves completely free.

Two near-universal moves, Rest and Substitute, provide counterplay, but they are not enough. A Paralysis-user ordering first can simple use their 4th substitution to delay Paralysis-inducing moves until the opponent is not behind Substitute (and other status-preventing counterplay like Safeguard and Misty Terrain). Therefore, an opponent has two options: waste an action on Substitute that the Paralysis-user will instead use to attack, or eat the Paralysis. Rest places the user in a vulnerable state where they are unable to access their best moves and similarly can be accounted for with Subtitutions. There is no way to actually punish someone for spamming Paralysis.

Paralysis is the worst offender because it has no real counterplay, but I think there are some issues with Sleep too. The main counterplay to sleep, Sleep Talk, is only learned at level 4. Snore is not real counterplay. But for some reason, sleep moves like Hypnosis are learned at level 0. As a result, status spam seems to be the optimal play for any lower-level match. I also don't love Confusion but I'm curious to hear what other people think about that.

The other statuses can wait, but I think we should make it a priority to take action on Paralysis.

 

[LouisCyphre]

"casual discussion" indeed

made it 5% per counter, completely neutering it. consider it hotfixed

edit: pending further work on status, when i am better. expect nothing until after the 25th at a minimum.

status as a whole is clearly an intended strength of many pokemon given to us by game freak, and having multiple or strong, reliable status access clearly costs pokemon bulk or power in their design.

if status isn't disruptive to "attack x3" orders, we may as well not have it. so any future work will have this in mind.

 

[Mowtom]

Recording my thoughts on paralysis so I don't forget to when we are actually reevaluating status:

I think that 25% chance of paralysis per counter is fine, and I think that some moves inflicting paralysis with many counters is fine. If I would change something it would be the part where one paralysis counter regenerates at the end of every round. Without that feature, paralysis would be an action neutral speed drop, which is nice, rather than a "you will lose one turn every round for the rest of the battle", which is a lot less nice.

 

[Ooraloo]

Some Pokemon options for the N Realgam Tower battle, for those coveting the Tao trio:

Mega Tyranitar is Mega Tyranitar. Absurdly bulky and has an overwhelmingly positive matchup against everyone except Conkeldurr and Zekrom.
Sarahaja is also very bulky. Between Ground STAB, Diamond Storm, and Body Press, it has no losing matchups.
Probopass is yet another bulky beast. Its 4x weaknesses can be a bit of a liability, but Terastalizing can help mitigate those issues. It synergizes well with the sand setters, as it definitely appreciates Sand Force to compensate for its lower offenses and an extra SpD boost just for fun.
Mega Altaria handles the Dragons well. It resists their Z-Moves and their Fusion moves and can hit back with its super-effective STABs. Helps teams not fold to Conkeldurr.
Ursaluna is a more hyper-offense answer to the Dragons. Flame Orb Earthquake deals 32 damage to Reshiram and 29 damage to Zekrom to threaten a one-round KO.
Donphan can take advantage of the hilarious buff to Sand Veil.
Kleavor can have some fun with Stone Axe.
Mega Camerupt doesn't have to be afraid of its Water weakness.
Metagross is a big hunk of stats. Can't go wrong with that. Only opponents that threaten it are Darmanitan and Reshiram.
Strong Fairy-types in general do well here, especially against Conkeldurr. There aren't any Poison or Steel types to scare them, and their wide movepools give them lots of useful coverage and lets them take advantage of the many buffs to status moves in Gen 9.

Would love to hear everyone else's thoughts on teambuilding for this sim.

 

[TMan87]

I am thinking about a N run based on Mega Camerupt myself. It matches pretty well into both Dragons (Zekrom only lose its powerful fusion move and Reshiram's secondary STAB is resisted + it hits into my stronger defense, both take SE STAB in return). I think it also matches well into Darmanitan and Gigalith (need to run calcs on that one probably). Unfortunately, I don't see much that covers slot 1 & Conkeldurr in one neat package.
N also has okay item manipulation in Trick, Sticky Barb and Knock Off, making item-based plays risky. He has no Ability manipulation outside of Sigilyph (who kind of doesn't want to give away any of its Abilities anyway), so that may be an avenue to explore.

Maybe next time I challenge N I won't be rolling Zoroark.

 

[P2X7]

Unfortunately, I don't see much that covers slot 1 & Conkeldurr in one neat package.

At a glance:

Mega Maw wins decisively against slot 1 while maintaining an advantage against Conk and the box legendaries. Immune to Item control.
If you're patient enough to win a Diancie from a different Facility, its Mega Evolution can tackle these targets and the dragons. Immune to Item control.
Iron Hands beats Zoroark and Archeops, and it has a slight edge over Sigilyph. It also narrowly beats out Conk. It likes Consumable Items, allowing it to mitigate the effects of Item control.
Xurkitree deals a staggering amount of damage to slot 1, especially when boosted by Specs. HP or Tera Fairy is required for best results against Conkeldurr.
Meowscarada is a fast Dark/Fairy/Electric Protean that can remove Conkeldurr's Guts.

Generally, Terastallizing an Ice-, Electric-, or Rock-type beatstick into a Fairy-type should work, as well.

 

[TMan87]

My mistake: I should have said "I don't see much that covers slot 1 & Conkeldurr and doesn't take up a Mega Slot" since I feel like Mega Camerupt is nice here.
Meowscarada is definitely interesting here, though.

 

[P2X7]

Tinkaton should still work in lieu of Mega Mawile. Just stock up on Berserk Genes first!

I don't think we've decided that Paradoxes and (non-Box) Legendaries will occupy a Mega Slot. Regular Diancie and the others choices I mentioned should be fine.

 

[epicdrill]

I've been considering a Mega TTar/Ursaluna/Donphan run for N, which kind of relies on not rolling Conkeldurr but other than that seems decently strong. First, however, I'm planning a Mega Heracross/Drampa/Excadrill Colress run, it seems like that set matches up very well into Colress' team imo. Specs Drampa in particular seems like a really strong answer to Genesect. I'm considering replacing Excadrill with Utility Umbrella Pyroak or Mollux to further improve the Genesect matchup.