Perhaps the next theorem video could be why move sets (like mix attacking, fast physical, bulky special, etc) are close to everything or the Dragonite theorem
In the official Pokémon Battle Revolution strategy guide, they unironically recommended that one of your Pokémon use Giga Impact and to have its partner use Roar on it to get around the recharge turn.
@@FalseSwipeGaming In fairness, there is some interesting and potentially viable stuff in there (particularly with the stratagems used by the Masters Battle Trainers), but… yeah.
That's hilarious that they had it in a handbook. In XD's Orre Colosseum, one of the battle sets had a team revolving around that strategy as the final opponent (the Gonzap set.) They had a Hyper Beam Choice Band Slaking on that team, as well as all the Kanto Starters with their elemental Hyper Beams
Orre colosseum was brutal. Furthest I ever got was the guy before Gonzap. Then to cap off the next round, you have a guy with imprison dusclops with ice moves so you can’t touch his dragon army. The genius sonority era was truly built different when it came to the npc and post game battles
Strategies not covered that I could think of 1. The "sports" (water sport, mud sport) 2. Stockpile+swallow/spit up 3. Charge+electric move 4. Endure+flail/reversal 5. Attraction in general (surely a destiny knot will be worth it!) 6. Lock-On 7. Round 8. Echoed Voice 9. Rage (esp. gen 1 rage)
Endure and flail/reversal with salac berry was actually so powerful in gen 3 that several pokemon would run QUICK ATTACK to stop it from happening. But yeah, nowadays not so powerful.
Endure strats kinda fell off, but i think with terrain setters like indeedee it still works really well. Endure-Salac into Reversal, let Scyther cook. Dual Wingbeat STAB + Technician as well (bar the 10% miss 😭)
Round is pretty cool for letting the slower pokemon move imediately after the faster one. I remember using this with Drampa to bypass its low speed. But yeah, it's probably not worth it when Hyper Voice can just hit both opponents.
I always thought Gravity was interesting, it increases the accuracy of grounded Pokémon’s moves (Dynamic Punch goes to 80%) and makes Flying types able to be hit by earthquake
Tatsugiri and Dondozo is a Plusle and Minun done right. They both need each other to activate the combo but Dondozo gets to have an ability and comes with a free +2 to every stat when Tatsugiri comes in at the cost of 2 vs 1 and no way to switch out.
1 vs. 2 unless you use what I dub "Perish Fish". It's been a well-known strat for over a year now, but to recap: Have a partner use Perish Song while Tatsugiri is on the field. Once Dondozo joins and Tatsugiri faints, you can send in a new Pokemon to replace Tatsugiri's now empty slot and have a +2 omni-boosted demon WITH a partner right next to it!
@@Leomorg731 not just a waste of turns, a damn waste of moves. You’re telling me I only get ONE other move to use??? Not to mention you’re telegraphing both your other moves and which ones you’ll be spamming for the next few turns. It’s so garbage even me as a dumb child blew through every NPC that tried it with their swallot/pelliper
Devil's Advocate: Sleep Move + Dream Eater doesn't belong on this list. It is only bad because of the meta consideration of the Sleep Clause. All of the other strats mentioned are bad for actual game reasons, but "players didn't like getting slept so the made a rule about it not in the actual game" doesn't really fit the bill.
There are a handful of mons with good enough accuracy sleep moves to get it off consistently. Darkrai and Butterfree being probably the best options for their speed and boosting capabilities. Shiinotic can do it too, but that mon has a lot more problems than even Butterfree
@@munchrai6396 I ran a Butterfree once that used Sleep Powder, Dream Eater, Bug Buzz, and Air Cutter (gen 4 move tutor, then transferred up to gen 6). Compound Eyes, holding a Scope Lens, EV trained for Speed and Sp. Atk. 97.5% accurate Sleep Powder, Dream Eater is one of the most powerful moves it can learn and gives it much-needed healing potential, Bug Buzz and Air Cutter not only give good STAB but take advantage of the Sp. Atk with the bonus of Air Cutter's already-improved crit rate being boosted even more by the Scope Lens. I'm not saying it was the best Pokemon build ever, but it damn sure surprised quite a few people.
@@absolutetrash7880 I'm not saying it's good, but the situation in which you leave a sleeping mon out in the field is not really rare. You'd rather burn a sleep turn even if it means you potentially eat 2 moves than switch in 1 of 2 mons with better matchup in the back.
@@alexandros5412 I did this too! But my team featured a variety of exploders - lando t, mega mewtwo x, genesect, (i forget the fourth one), and gigalith as my sand setter who also exploded
Gamefreak actually doubled-down on the Defense Curl + Rollout strategy. In gen 7, turning Defense Curl into a Z-move will cause the additional effect of increasing accuracy by one stage, perfect to prevent Rollout from missing and ensuring it goes all the way to the 5th turn. If you're still alive by then. I used it once on Blissey because I was trying to make a physical set :V
@@jimmy13morrisonYes, but it's a single target attack You could do something like Sceptile targets a Rhyperior with Grass Pledge, and then Incineroar uses Fire Pledge on a Ferrothorn (I'm making up a scenario), with the terrain made by the last attacker like usual
Or even better, turned the move into a spread move. I mean, you're litterally setting a field effect, so clearly it should be able to attack both opponents!
To be fair to gamefreak, most of these are meant to be used in the single player playthrough, when more powerful options are not yet available or to fulfill some other role. Case in point: compounding moves like Rollout, Echoed Voice and Rage. At a moment in the game when your pokemon's strongest move has 60BP, having a self-contained move that can sweep a gym leader's entire team is invaluable. Slaking in particular is in a similar boat, since when playing with shift mechanics, you can switch him out after KOing the opposing pokemon, avoiding Truant turns altogether - and being available very early in the game, it can OHKO most of the mons you'll run into due to its BST alone. Finally, Dream Eater is reasonable in Single Player since AI rarely switches out sleeping mons, while the drain provides free recovery to mons that usually don't have other forms of it in their toolset (think Gengar or Gardevoir), greatly extending their longevity in segments with limited access to Pokemon Centers. In fact, most of these are staples in tougher fan games like Pokemon Reborn (maybe not Dream Eater, if just for the better AI). If I was to name one combo that just failed altogether, it would definetly be Stockpile chains and Bide. The first initially didn't even give a stat boost, so all it did it waste your turns - and neither Spit Up nor Swallow made up for that. After Gen4 it gave the dual defense boost at least, which could be useful... except unlike Cosmic Power, you couldn't actually use it to boost them all the way up to +6. Worse, using the finishers actually removed the boosts. As for Bide... has anyone actually managed to deal damage with that move? Like, ever?
I can believe that But... the Pledge moves They're so f***ing complicated and I'm pretty sure you NEED to trade to get any other starters, and thus, actually make use of the Pledge gimmick
Can you really blame game freak for dream eater though? It works fine, great even, as intended. It's us, who put our own restrictions on sleep, that made it bad To be clear, I'm not saying sleep clause is bad or a mistake. It's not, I find it extremely important for a healthy metagame. I'm just arguing that it shouldn't be on this list because we chose to make the strategy bad, when this video is more about strategies that are bad of their own merits
If I recall correctly, sleep clause is implemented in the base game of Pokémon Stadium. Attempting to put multiple NPC Pokémon to sleep in a solo playthrough fails because the rule takes effect.
@@solidzack yeah, that's one of the justifications used by smogon, and in the case of stadium I fully agree. But do you think smogon would allow you to sleep as many targets as you want freely if stadium didn't have that restriction?
@@Forever-GM-Dusty in a what-if sleep clause wasn't ever a thing world, I think Smogon would sooner ban all sleep-inducing moves/abilities than invent sleep clause on their own
@@jamesaditya5254 totally fair! In which case, dream eater would still never be used because it would only ever be a punishment for rest, not a valuable asset in a player's toolbox. And again, dream eater being a poor option would be a result of a community ban on inducing sleep, not its own merit of being a bad move by design
I duno, I spammed a lot of action replay Darkri on wifi and on the playground in d/p and it was pretty bad. Darkri kicked ass so it took a wile to realize just how bad dream eater was but it's bad. If everything goes perfectly the payoff for dream eater is 10/20 more base power over Psychic/Extrasensory, a meaningless improvement since THE TARGET IS ASLEEP and can't fight back. Since they can't fight back you can just hit them multiple times. If the opponent switches or the opponent wakes up you do zero damage instead of a huge hit, thus introducing lots of fragility into an otherwise risk free playstyle. Remember, that is base case scenario. Sometimes you don't want to click dark void. In those situations it is just a wasted moveslot. Dream Eater is the player spending a moveslot on a move that only works on pokemon that is effectively already KOed and in that one situation is still worse than something like Psychic/Extrasensory. It is arguably even more useless in singleplayer. At least things like D-curl rollout is a god tier tactic in early routes. Every time I would think I was being clever move tutoring Dream Eater on a Psychic as it's primary attacking move for a base power increase I would quickly realized all I did was change my primary attacking move from 100% accuracy to 60% accuracy since it is conditional on hypnosis landing.
look up weedletwineedle! there are more pokemon with that ability and that channel has used them to possibly the fullest potential. Weedle also made all other strategies in this video work lol
The bonus for using it needs to be way better. I used to use a pulse and minun team for fun but they need a speed boost or something from Plus/minus because a SpA boost isn’t good enough
You actually undersell Evice. The ability he swaps to Slaking is Own Tempo, meaning if Slowking does get to move again through Truant, it can use Swagger on it to boost its attack two more stages, but it can’t get confused by the move. Diabolical. Update: My memory was off, that Slowking doesn’t have Swagger, sorry. Still, a formidable tactic already, and that’s another layer one can add.
@@FalseSwipeGaming Okay my apologies, my memory was faulty. The Own Tempo part was right, but apparently his Slowking doesn’t have Swagger. I swore it did. My apology, I haven’t played that battle in almost 20 years, my memory misfired.
plus, the slowking will also try to pass truant to one of YOUR pokemon if it gets the chance to do so. (also, this reminds me of the stupid scarf contrary spinda + slaking strat that I tested once, where I skill swap contrary onto slaking, which boosts its speed with hammer arm and then I try to boost its attack with charm later in the fight. Did work about as well as you would expect, lmao. -but it WAS fun- )
@@richardmozham I'm inclined to believe it wasn't intentional, knowing that it does learn swagger and that adding it would complete what would have been one of the most diabolical scheme ever conceived in Colosseum/XD history. Must have been a shameless oversight.
The funnier part about Plus and Minus is that Game Freak would later add the moves Magnetic Flux and Gear Up, which boost the team's stats (Def/SpDef and Atk/SpAtk, respectively) but only if they have either the Plus or Minus ability That niche use is why this is probably the first time you've heard of these moves
They can be used as part of a tera raid cheese strategy. Getting +4 def/spdef on the whole team turn 1 is great, and you can set it up again in a single turn if it negates status changes.
I have an interesting idea on how to make Plus/Minus better abilities. Instead of actually requiring either ability to activate, why not make it so that holding a magnet activates the ability? On top of that, make both plus and minus raise BOTH special stats to give a much needed boost.
Yeah, that's the special stats boost is what I figured Plus/Minus did when RSE were new. I just figured Plusle and Minun were just bad Pokemon. It's not perfect since Earthquake is physical but it would have been the basic justification for having both abilities on the field that otherwise do nothing.
They actually really reworked the abilities to make it work ...And it still failed. Now, Plus and Plus and Minus and Minus also activate each other. It has been given to some more powerful Pokemon too (Manetric, Ampharos Toctricity... And Klinklang, mainly) There's also the Magnetic Flux that boosts both defences of Pokemon with Plus/Minus (and Gear Up for Both Attack Stats. Only Klinklang/Magearna learns it though).
Norman used the Skill Swap strategy on his Slaking during his rematches in Emerald as well. But you can counter it by taking out his Spinda and Blissey beforehand, which is easier said than done sometimes because Slaking might KO your own Pokemon first
The official strategy guide for HGSS has a bunch of these listed I think the one that always stands out to me is: klutz + fling/trick + iron ball/sticky barb/ETC Having to sacrifice your ability, item, AND a turn to do less than an explosion/paralysis/burn is hilariously bad
It has its uses, and it's extremely useful for some Pokemon in the Battle Hall (Iron Ball Fling giving fantastic Dark coverage for clearing the Ghost or Psychic categories), but overall it's still not a great idea. Them recommending that as a strategy seems strange...
Another thing to mention is Synchronoise. It’s a move that only hurts Pokemon that have the same type as the user. Because it also does psychic type damage, the move is completely worthless on pure dark types, like Umbreon.
If it would ignore effectiveness and always deal super effective damage, then that would actually be an interesting move. But like this this move doesn't make sense whatsoever considering you cannot even get a STAB out of it because if you do then you deal resisted damage.
And when it was first introduced, it only had 70 base power. A convoluted move that you could only use in very specific circumstances, and it was marginally more powerful than Psybeam. Great.
I spent a while contemplating the best possible theoretical users of Synchronoise in any conceivable format ever. (They removed it in gen 8 so some of these are only theoretical but hey) The best ones I came up with are: gen 8 glaceon using synchronoise to hit lapras 1/7th harder than freeze-dry and to hit urshifu etc with a psychic max move; gen 9 jolteon switching in on pawmot double shock and counter-killing because your opponent would probably just hit close combat or something; vaporeon or golduck using it to kill lapras; gen 9 sylveon tera'ing into poison to survive a poison type switch-in and then counter-kill. As you can see, all of these are absolutely terrible LMAO.
@@Jayyemi It's so amazing that it got buffed to NEARLY DOUBLE POWER, the biggest power buff a move has ever received between generations, and its still terrible.
So you know that whole thing about how Game Freak hates making a fast Spore user? There’s actually a pretty easy way around this in Doubles- take a male Meowstic with Prankster and Skill Swap and pair it with something like Amoonguss. That’s literally all you have to do. This works because Meowstic is faster than most other Prankster Pokémon, and because Prankster Spore can get the jump on anything that would normally threaten Meowstic itself.
@@shadowkirbae4289 Which is funny because I've seen some people who use the N-Gas strat prefer base Weezing since it has fewer weaknesses overall, which is the main weakness of the strategy as a whole (when Weezing goes down, game over). It's definitely an apples to oranges thing though. Both have their merit.
@@shadowkirbae4289 I remember Kanto Weezing being the preferred form in SwSh VGC. Plenty of steel moves there that G-Weezing didn't like taking. Even now in SV, it seems like an even split for both forms in terms of usage, on the in-game ladder at least. I dunno about tournaments very much, though I am aware of Wolfe Glick using G-Weezing at a recent one. But I wouldn't take that as a sign that G-Weezing is strictly better. That said, if you want to use Weezing offensively like he did, the extra STAB type definitely helps.
@@shadowkirbae4289regular Weezing is better because of its pure poison typing meaning it has fewer weaknesses. When your one job is to just stay on the field, having fewer weaknesses is better
A cool synergy in doubles is Cherrim with Groudon in doubles, because Flower Gift literally gives Groudon boosts to stats it wants and needs (more atk and sp. def go a long way for it) Unfortunately, keeping Cherrim alive after 1 turn is pretty tough.
Nightmare was better, it always did 25% of the health of the target. Dream Eater has to deal with Snorlax, the holy god of GSC, basically shrugging off any special attacks. Also considering that Sleep Talk could call Rest and it would fully heal the mon it would be easily undone.
@@AceAviations2 Sleep is also unreliable due to low accuracy ,maybe if something had spore AND had stab on dream eater, it could potentially be useful? Prob not though, due to sleep clause.
@@et34t34fdf Currently in FireRed my Butterfree has Sleep Powder, Dream Eater, Toxic & Psybeam, & with Compoundeyes, it's totally unstoppable. Idk who told you Sleep Eater is bad but it isn't, at all.
@@Barkit Probably not. That's getting to be disgustingly specialized, and if you're relying on dream eater to heal you after halving your HP, your opponent can just swap and you won't get the opportunity.
The most silly thing I have ever experienced in Pokémon battling was when I was using Komala and I got countered by a Latios using Dream Eater with _no_ sleep move Dream Eater + Sleep Move is bad, but Dream Eater with no sleep move is bad but badass
I think something that also be said about Dream Eater is its accuracy. But it has 100%, you may say. But aside from spore (no pokemon other than Smergle gets Spore and Dream Eater), you have an 80% chance to use slughtly better paychic. If you only want to nuke things and dont care about sleeps utility, psychic may be weaker, but theres a reason thunderbolt is used over thunder for most 'mons
and then, in the re-fight, the same dude decides to go full nuts and just stuffs the crap out of you with double STAB-levitate earthquake from Flygon and Claydol ... great memories.
That's actually a real strat in VGC. You don't build your entire team around it ofc, but given the ubiquity of EQ and Protect/Detect you would be hard pressed to find a team that doesn't have this combo in their back pocket.
If you want to fix Plus and Minus just make it so in addition to the synergy bonus, Plus doubles stat boosts for allies and Minus doubles stat drops for opponents. Higher positives and lower negatives, seems pretty straightforward to me.
Honestly, just give it to more diverse Pokemon. I know it'd be a bit hard to justify, but sure they could design a Steel/Flying or Electric/Flying type with the ability. Just giving us any options that aren't weak to Ground would do a heck of a lot for the strategy.
6:49 GameFreak didn't make Colosseum, Genius Sorority made it, & it had lots of gimmicks! It's good, but not strictly viable to use that as proof of GAMEFREAK'S intent. Man, I never realized how REALLY impractically complex the Pledges were. Maybe GF can make them a bit more lenient later. 11:58 That Shuckie/Shuckle-lending trainer's name is Mania in G/S/C, & Kirk in HG/SS. Also, he's found in Cianwood, not Olivine. Anyway, okay analysis video! Thanks for uploading!
Natural Gift seems overlooked, as Hidden Power is instant. Natural Gift is one use and requires a berry. Belch is also not used for requiring HEALING from a berry.
Belch doesn't require healing exactly, just that it is eaten. Meaning Belch can be used after something like a Passho berry is eaten to reduce water-type damage, or a Liechi berry is eaten to increase attack. Don't ask why I know this, it's still not a great move.
There are a TON of niche moves and abilities that game freak has impmemented in recent gens that have been pretty useless. - Terrains before the surge abilities - Type or type chart changing moves (soak, magic powder, tar shot, trick or treat, electrify for a stretch) - Very niche doubles moves like rototiller or flower shield that would never make a moveset - Gimmick signature moves / abilities like Schooling, No Retreat or Filet Away
Eh, the Dream Eater one isn't really fair. This move was actually good before later rulings. That's like saying Dark Void was a terrible move because it later got nerfed.
I agree with that too. The only knock to Dream Eater is that the target has to be asleep and the availability of a reliably accurate sleep move to Pokémon that can learn Dream Eater are quite low. But you could abuse that in Double Battles. One mon uses Spore, another uses Dream Eater.
Well, yes and no. Sleep Clause first started as a mechanic programmed into Pokémon Stadium that the competitive community adapted, so Gamefreak made Dream Eater in the same generation they started the rule that crippled the move. Albeit, Pokémon Stadium did release near the end of the Generation, and to my knowledge Stadium 1 JP didn't have Sleep Clause.
Even without sleep clause Dream Eater is awful. You are giving up a move slot on a move that only works on effectively KOed pokemon. Even then since you are hitting effectively KOed pokemon with it the extra power is wasted because the target can't fight back and it is barely stronger than other psychic moves. It then incurs the risk of doing zero damage if the target wakes up or switches. The heal is also useless as the user is either too frail to gain any survivability or too tanky so it is better off using reliable recovery like recover. Even if it was not uesless it would still be less useful than the special drop you can get from psychic.
In what way was this move "actually good?" Nobody was using this in VGC either. And that's because it's obviously a gimmick and completely inferior to just using psychic.
2:20 Fun Fact, to this day Gamefreak are STILL trying to make Plus and Minus a viable strategy. There’s actually a couple of moves that synergise with them. Gear Up is a Move introduced in Gen 7, and is one of the signature moves of Klinklang. It’s an alternate version of Growth that affects both the user and the partner, but only if they have Plus or Minus as an ability. Magnetic Flux has a bit of a wider distribution and was introduced in Gen 6, but it boosts both defences by one stage if they have Plus or Minus. The issue with these moves is that they only proc _if there’s allies with Plus or Minus._ Plusle and Minun aren’t the only Pokémon with the ability, but the vast majority of Pokémon that also have it as an ability vastly prefer different abilities. Having either ability means you’re probably stacking Electric or Steel Type Pokémon, which isn’t good.
Perhaps the next theorem video could be why move sets (like mix attacking, fast physical, bulky special, etc) are close to everything or the Dragonite theorem
Honestly Gamefreak is more willing to make something that is cool… rather than balanced or usable Just look at Mega Kangaskhan! I’m sure they didn’t even thought it would be broken But it was because they never think about the consequences of implementing something Like they will most of the time make Pokémon that are essentially better versions of past mons Like Garchomp as a better Flygon Or Iron Hands as a better Comkeldurr Sure there are trades that they can use that the upgrade can Like Dragon Dance and Wide Guard But most of the teams prefer the new versions despite of that
Fun fact: pledge teams are actually having a bit of a moment in the current vgc format of reg H. The lower power level means starters like primarina, meowscarada, and greninja are already decently viable, so slotting in pledge moves to activate the swamp and outspeed the entire opposing team (even if they use tailwind) has seen niche success
Plus and Minus should set up electric terrain on top of any boosts. Just makes sense from a real science standpoint and it would be a super cool gimmick that could see use in formats with no miraidon to set terrain.
@@turkoositerapsidi even for doubles. Youd still essentially be setting up one of your pokemon to be 2v1 because of how utterly nonthreatening and inconsequential plusle and minun are
I remember pokemon battle revolution where a team had clefable and azumarill using belly drum and 4 psych up users, one of them being pure power medicham. Very good in theory, but just didnt really work out
I’ve ran into pledge teams on reg H ladder totally unironically. There’s some real pressure in using a strategy almost no one knows the mechanics of correctly
Honestly rollout is one of the reasons my bidouf solo’d platinum so I’ve always had a respect for it. It also helps that I’d miss tackle more often even though it’s accuracy is supposed to be better.
If I remember right, in early Sword and Shield there was a Plus/Minus team high in the ladder that appeared on both Cybertron and Wolfy's channel. It used a Toxicity and Klingklang for the Plus/Minus and had some other weird things on it like a Giga Drain Flygon. It 100% was a closed team sheets kinda team, but it worked.
5:06 You know that Cofagrigus and the Mummy ability is perfect for this, right? Especially in double battles. It's not meta breaking or anything, but it's a pretty easy combo to get going with the decent benefit of shutting down enemy pokemon abilities as well.
Yeah, I think its just a case of bad timing. Runerigus releasing in the same gen as Galarian Weezing pretty much eclipsed the former strategy despite the fact that having two ability nullifiers would've made the strategy a lot more consistent
What kept it from taking off is Mummy requires contact to spread while Neutralizing Gas applies the moment Weezing switches in. Sure there are upsides for Mummy that it persists if Cofagrigus faints, but the instant blanketing element made Weezing more useful in more scenarios
@@jamesaditya5254 Contact isn't that strenuous of a condition to set this up. I think the bigger issue was that Cofagrigus was the only mon with Mummy, which really hurt the consistency of such a slow and focused strategy. I would be genuinely curious how well this would work Runerigus existed in gen 5.
@@munchrai6396 never said it's a strenuous condition you can definitely make it work, my point being Neutralizing Gas is just way easier to use and more consistent. It also have a number of creative usage to reactivate some abilities to your advantage, such as terrain and weather-enabling abilities as well as intimidate. Notably in gen 8 VGC it could also reactivate Intrepid Sword for Zacian
What if Plus and Minus also gave the Levitate ability, magnets can float under the correct circumstances. The reasoning isn't perfect but it would help. Or maybe this is too much, but could be 50% boost to both Attacking and defensive stats.
There's actually a hilarious way to get truant off slaking in singles I used a few times YEARS ago that involved using a cofagrigus. Basically you just switch in cofagrigus holding red card into a physical contact move, this will give the opposing pokemon the mummy ability. Then you swap in a slaking that knows pursuit to guarantee you can get the mummy ability yourself. It definitely is not viable given the convoluted setup and fact you are potentially running 2 pokemon who aren't the best but it was very funny to do. With pursuit gone the strategy is basically dead as anyone could just switch out now when slaking comes in.
8:58 The elemental monkeys also learn the pledge move of their type, and Silvally is supposed to learn all three but can only learn Grass Pledge due to a coding error with the Move Tutor.
I actually liked the pledges IN GAME, sure its rare to happen naturally but most newer games have a arena-like area where you can use this kind of stuff and in gen 6 specifically i went to the arena a lot😅.
Here are a few I remember growing up: Defense Curl also boosts Ice Ball. Sunny Day with Cherrim. You can pair it with Groudon or Koraidon in Ubers to boost their attack with it, as it boosts both of your mons physical attack and special defense. Weather Ball on a weather team. While 100 base power is okay, the fact that its type is dependent on which weather is out means that there's counterplay whenever there are weather wars. It also doesn't help that the weather setters have better options for special damage in that same power range. The best use is to give more coverage, like giving a Chlorophyll user a Fire move. I also don't know if Weather Ball even gets the damage boost in Sun or Rain. Sun and Sythesis/Morning Sun/Moonlight. All 3 of those moves heal half max hp normally, 2/3 max in Sun, and 1/4 max in any other weather. Outside of a Sun team, these moves are basically Recover. And during weather wars, they will be useless most of the time because of how meh Sun is compared to the other 3 weathers. Yes, Koraidon and Torkoal can set the sun, but one's an Uber and the other kinda sucks. There's also the problem of how few uses you get from them. All of them cap at 8 uses. Recover and Soft-Boiled got heavily nerfed to this in Gen 9, so they at least doesn't overshadow them from that.
Dream Eater is good in game gen 1 There is no sleep clause and you know when opponents wake up and you're usually faster So how is this a bad one by devs?
I like the idea of Rivalry + Attract. If your opponent has the same gender then they take more damage and if they're the opposite gender then they're immobilized.
Man I'm disappointed you didn't even mention that several other Pokémon also get Plus and Minus as their potential abilities. Definitely should be researched and mentioned better.
I feel like Rollout was never meant to be competitive so much as it was a severely overtuned gimmick for playthroughs - either teaching players not to let gym leaders (Whitney) run a train of uninterrupted attacks, or giving players who understood the mechanics an option to faceroll trainers other than spamming SE attacks.
This video reminded me of just how ABYSMAL Plus & Minus are as abilities. I mean, a 50% boost to Special Attack? That's it?? Why only Special Attack? Why only 50%? Why do they have the SAME EFFECT?? WHY was it later on changed to where Plus could activate Plus and Minus could activate Minus?? They're based on MAGNETS!! That's the OPPOSITE OF HOW MAGNETS WORK!! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING??! I would revert Plus & Minus to only work when a Pokemon with the opposite ability is present. Then, I would change Plus to boost Attack, Special Attack, and Speed all by 50%, while Minus boosts Defense and Special Defense by 80%. It's stupid how these two complimentary magnet-themed abilites did the same thing, and that that thing had such a little impact on the battle.
My favorite doubles strategy was running Klefki or Meowstic with Safeguard and Swagger. So, turn 1 you use Safeguard to protect both of your Pokemon from status ailments and as soon as turn 2 you can either Swagger your primary attacker for +2 attack or commence trolling enemy special attackers with confusion and attack boosted confusion damage.
The only time I've ever lost against a Plusle and Minun was against Lacey in the Indigo Disk, and that's because I didn't realize her Pokemon were going to be a LV 70. Terrible as they are, trying to beat them with a team of LV 25 and under, kind of a tough ask.
Love Entrainment Durant. Hustle is definitely the more reasonable option with the mon's access to Hone Claws, but Truant is a supreme level of cheese that only works when trapping is allowed
The two weirdest ones not included are probably Magnetic flux (a cosmic power for an ally but only if plus/minus is activated, I genuinely doubt it’s ever been used at any level) And rototiller, a work up for an ally pokemon if they’re a grass type (with some weird distribution)
Magnetic Flux is okay for Klinklang at least who can use it for itself. Rototiller was that move in Gen 6 that made me go "what was the point of making this?"
I think Dream Eater needs to be used as more of a mindgame move. Don't put Dream Eater on a sleep Pokemon, put it on a separate tank Pokemon on your team that could use the healing and wont be expected to have it. Your opponent will be more likely to bring the sleeping Pokemon back out when the sleeper is off the field, so you can fool them into switching toward your favour. It's relatively useless once your sleeper dies, but then it's also only taking up 1 move on 2 Pokemon, which is better than 2 on 1. Plus, your sleeper isn't as likely to die when they swap out right after.
The Pledges are weird because, like, they're supposed to be Game Freak's attempt at turning Pokémon Trainer's Final Smash into a main-series mechanic (which explains why only starters can learn the moves, and why it only attacks once despite requiring two attackers). And like you said, it's actually a really well-done concept - especially when you factor that in. However, since it is supposed to be PT's Final Smash, if you use all three moves in a Triple Battle, it should just straight up activate all three effects, and display as Triple Finish rather than the combined move's normal name. Also, if you activate multiple Pledges in a single turn, it should be a spread move. We've got single-target moves now that become spread moves in certain scenarios (Expanding Force and Tera Starstorm are the ones I can think of.)
You know what is hilarious. In game, there are a few known double battles with Plusle and Minun… you know the fun part? None of them ever know a single special attack. No Spark (gen 3) and in future gens, they have Nuzzle. So even though their abilities are active, they see no benefit from it as they only know physical moves.
1st one; you need to remember that Plus and Minus boys weren't meant for competitive, they were meant for gameplay.... they were meant for teaching. So they are meant to kinda suck... the point is for us to beat them. They are an easy team that allows players to learn about abilities and doubles without difficulty..... so it would defeat the purpose if they were good.... 4th one, Roll Out worked for Whitney. We need to remember that Pokemon was not originally created for competition in mind.... and it was a boss strategy that was dangerous for players...
One of my favorite doubles strategies involves using a rare move named After You + weather. The strategy is simple: a mon with a speed boosting under weather ability (Chlorophyll/Swift Swim) has to use After You on a mon that has Drought/Drizzle and a move that only hits the rivals (Eruption or Water Spout). It's a bit inconsistent but I used to use it in Gen VII Battle Tree.
A bit unfair to call dreameater a weak strategy when it is only weak because sleep has been community semi-banned. If you just play by the natural rules, it is extremely strong since it makes sleep even better.
Slaking DOES prove itself useful against Shauntal once afflicted with Mummy and firing off super effective Faint Attacks and egg exclusive Night Slashes
The funniest part to me about Plusle and Minun is Colosseum. You can obtain Plusle in that game as a gift... but the only way you can obtain Minun is by transferring from the GBA games, and the only way you can do that is to beat the main story. So in the game based on double battles, you can't use the combo that was designed for it in the main campaign.
The moment I see Double Team spam or prankster swagger I immediately assume the fetal position... I wish double team was actually removed from the series entirely...
One way to nerf double team is that the evasion buffs only last until the Pokemon is hit Like how in the anime all the fakes that double team create simply disappear when the Pokemon that used double team gets hit
In the same vein as your last entry, there is Paralysis + Smelling Salts ! Echoed Voice is a fun move, but it's too niche to really be competitive, although it has so much potential in Double and even more in Triple (please bring them back). Round is kinda similar to the Pledge moves but better, the second Pokémon using it will move directly after the first one!
I couldn't even justify to myself that paralysis + smelling salts was a combo, I thought it was just some random detriment they added to smelling salts. Crazy strategy, almost as bad as the sports moves.
That's not true at all. Pokemon can be transferred from old generations after the DLC drops, or traded to a game that doesn't have the DLC. A more legit criticism would be needing to pay money for new one-off Pokemon introduced that no one in their right mind would trade away.
@@DrMintster okay fair enough, you got a very good point! yet as a new player being confronted with a not very user friendly tool such as pokemon home that discriminates so many actually legit pokemon and not telling you why it can‘t be transferred over is such a shame. especially because we‘re talking about the biggest media franchise in the world, i know it‘s a lot of merch etc involved but still i‘m not really super happy of the way nintendo and game freak are dealing with the whole transfer debate. I still do enjoy scarlet and violet but for completely different reasons then something for example as Pokemon Platinum or Heartgold.
The return on Dexit is something that you don't really see unless you look closely. The framework to port all 1000 Pokemon between games is possible but it results in Pokemon getting no visual upgrades between games and reducing the amount of new Pokemon introduced in a generation. If you look at each generation after Black and White, you can see that each gen was lower than the previous lowest 100 from Gen 2. But Sword and Shield overcomes that 100 mark when you count regional forms with the early effect of Dexit. Scarlet and Violet were able to go well over 100 plus rework various models and add textures with Dexit in full swing.
@@DrMintsterSo what you're saying is that you don't need to buy the dlc to be able to transfer the newly added Pokémon from Pokémon Home to a Scarlet or Violet.
one of the three things i know about vgc is that it's not 6v6 like smogon singles, it is instead 4v4, so you aren't wasting a third of your team on +/-. you are wasting half of your team on it, and if you don't bring them into a battle, then the opp knows what your mon in the back is once the third one comes in. also, defense curl and rollout at least have usage in the scott's thoughts-style solo runs, so that's something.
@@michaelgum97 As someone who used to do a lot of raiding, I can safely say that yeah, that's basically it. Having actually helpful teammates do things like run Fake Tears/Metal Sound, it's very easy to annihilate certain bosses. I never used it on mine though, I prefer taunt instead since it's more generally useful and relies less on teammates.
Because it doesn't make sense as a theorem. It's literally the first thing anyone learns when playing competitive, that their favorite pokemon in game aren't always good competitively. It doesn't need a theorem
I'm glad you mentioned regigigas and galarian weezing is actually a good combo that works. well, "good" might be a bit much. let's say usable and at the very least not terrible
8:16 I forgot about the Pledge moves until recently because I had literally never used or even seen their special effects even once due to how unlikely it is you'll ever naturally come across them. I recently began streaming and heavily playing Dynamax Adventures from Sword and Shield and it's only from playing this particular game mode that these special effects have occurred (the Kanto and Hoenn starters know the moves) and I realized: "Hey this is the first time I've EVER seen this!!" I didn't even know that it holds off doing the first move 😅 EDIT: Oh and I didn't know about the "whichever Pledge is super effective against the other Pledge" is the Pledge USED regardless of the slower Pokémon using it 😅😅😅
A mention I was expecting: mind reader and lock on. When I was 10 I screamed after recieveing a sure hit dynamic punch from Chuck's Poliwrath, then I learned I could just switch out
Taunt+Sucker Punch would be an interesting gimmick used, or move combos like Torment+Substitute+recovery move/item or Encore+(same other factors as Torment set, maybe with Soundproof or a contact status ability for either) for enterprising players. Those would mostly be for stallbreaking for the first & stall based sets in the opposite ways for the latter two with mono-attacking STAB, but still interesting to look into. Yet another worth looking into would be Substitute+Throat Chop if gimmicky
I used to run a DC Rollout P Groudon in AG, just for the chance to scream "ROADO ROLLER DAAAAAA" if i ever got that fifth hit to go off and something got obliterated
Go to mondly.app/fsg to get 96% off of lifetime access to 41 languages and start learning today.
Perhaps the next theorem video could be why move sets (like mix attacking, fast physical, bulky special, etc) are close to everything or the Dragonite theorem
96% 0ff is crazy. but ig how else do you beat Duolingo
Bro yall been busy with these videos good job yall solid work
duolingo on top
These may be some bad developer strategies but Cresselia in doubles is often the GOAT. How amazing was Cresselia Actually?!?!
In the official Pokémon Battle Revolution strategy guide, they unironically recommended that one of your Pokémon use Giga Impact and to have its partner use Roar on it to get around the recharge turn.
thats a great find for the this video's sequel! Thanks
@@FalseSwipeGaming In fairness, there is some interesting and potentially viable stuff in there (particularly with the stratagems used by the Masters Battle Trainers), but… yeah.
That's hilarious that they had it in a handbook. In XD's Orre Colosseum, one of the battle sets had a team revolving around that strategy as the final opponent (the Gonzap set.) They had a Hyper Beam Choice Band Slaking on that team, as well as all the Kanto Starters with their elemental Hyper Beams
Orre colosseum was brutal. Furthest I ever got was the guy before Gonzap. Then to cap off the next round, you have a guy with imprison dusclops with ice moves so you can’t touch his dragon army. The genius sonority era was truly built different when it came to the npc and post game battles
Waste one move or waste one move. Into entry hazards.
Strategies not covered that I could think of
1. The "sports" (water sport, mud sport)
2. Stockpile+swallow/spit up
3. Charge+electric move
4. Endure+flail/reversal
5. Attraction in general (surely a destiny knot will be worth it!)
6. Lock-On
7. Round
8. Echoed Voice
9. Rage (esp. gen 1 rage)
Endure and flail/reversal with salac berry was actually so powerful in gen 3 that several pokemon would run QUICK ATTACK to stop it from happening.
But yeah, nowadays not so powerful.
Endure strats kinda fell off, but i think with terrain setters like indeedee it still works really well.
Endure-Salac into Reversal, let Scyther cook. Dual Wingbeat STAB + Technician as well (bar the 10% miss 😭)
Round is pretty cool for letting the slower pokemon move imediately after the faster one. I remember using this with Drampa to bypass its low speed. But yeah, it's probably not worth it when Hyper Voice can just hit both opponents.
Endure Reversal was at least good in gen 3 OU but everything else yea
I always thought Gravity was interesting, it increases the accuracy of grounded Pokémon’s moves (Dynamic Punch goes to 80%) and makes Flying types able to be hit by earthquake
Tatsugiri and Dondozo is a Plusle and Minun done right. They both need each other to activate the combo but Dondozo gets to have an ability and comes with a free +2 to every stat when Tatsugiri comes in at the cost of 2 vs 1 and no way to switch out.
1 vs. 2 unless you use what I dub "Perish Fish". It's been a well-known strat for over a year now, but to recap: Have a partner use Perish Song while Tatsugiri is on the field. Once Dondozo joins and Tatsugiri faints, you can send in a new Pokemon to replace Tatsugiri's now empty slot and have a +2 omni-boosted demon WITH a partner right next to it!
Also, Dondozo is a genuinely good Pokémon by default. So it’s not living and dieting by it’s gimmick
It also helps that Dondozo is just good in general, being a excellent wall with unaware.
@@georgecortes3416 the classic, aka Costar Flamigo getting the +2 omniboost
Lol came here to say the same thing
stockpile + swallow/spit up was a very silly gimmick that really did nothing
I was looking for this. Such a waste of turns yeah lol
Nevermind the amount of turns wasted. Imagine using 2-3 slots on that gimmick.
Hell, even in regular, non-competitive gameplay, it's still ass.
@@Leomorg731 not just a waste of turns, a damn waste of moves. You’re telling me I only get ONE other move to use??? Not to mention you’re telegraphing both your other moves and which ones you’ll be spamming for the next few turns. It’s so garbage even me as a dumb child blew through every NPC that tried it with their swallot/pelliper
in game i like using stockpile like once or twice on like driftblim to buff up his defenses kinda like a demo cosmic power
Devil's Advocate: Sleep Move + Dream Eater doesn't belong on this list. It is only bad because of the meta consideration of the Sleep Clause. All of the other strats mentioned are bad for actual game reasons, but "players didn't like getting slept so the made a rule about it not in the actual game" doesn't really fit the bill.
There are a handful of mons with good enough accuracy sleep moves to get it off consistently. Darkrai and Butterfree being probably the best options for their speed and boosting capabilities. Shiinotic can do it too, but that mon has a lot more problems than even Butterfree
@@munchrai6396 I ran a Butterfree once that used Sleep Powder, Dream Eater, Bug Buzz, and Air Cutter (gen 4 move tutor, then transferred up to gen 6). Compound Eyes, holding a Scope Lens, EV trained for Speed and Sp. Atk. 97.5% accurate Sleep Powder, Dream Eater is one of the most powerful moves it can learn and gives it much-needed healing potential, Bug Buzz and Air Cutter not only give good STAB but take advantage of the Sp. Atk with the bonus of Air Cutter's already-improved crit rate being boosted even more by the Scope Lens. I'm not saying it was the best Pokemon build ever, but it damn sure surprised quite a few people.
Still niche, you'd have to stay in, be trapped in, or have your entire team slept for it to work consistently
@@absolutetrash7880 I'm not saying it's good, but the situation in which you leave a sleeping mon out in the field is not really rare. You'd rather burn a sleep turn even if it means you potentially eat 2 moves than switch in 1 of 2 mons with better matchup in the back.
I came here just to say this.
The greatest strategie is still to explode 5 mons and have kingambit as the 6th
Kingambit: Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.
A reminder that there's a double battle NPC with Protect Imprison Ghost types and a bunch of exploding pokemon.
sandstorm t tar + 4 weezings w/explosion + houndstone won me a decent amount of showdown games when gen 9 first released lmao
Codel approved.
@@alexandros5412 I did this too! But my team featured a variety of exploders - lando t, mega mewtwo x, genesect, (i forget the fourth one), and gigalith as my sand setter who also exploded
Defense Curl + Rollout.
Yeah, my Miltank in Gen 3 OU had some success with it.
- Whitney
@@Aaa-vp6ug Correct.
Defense Curl, Rollout, Stomp, Attract.
@@axearmor214attract+thunder wave+flinch hax is a legit strategy (well, not attract, but parahax is).
That was also teached by Earls Class in Pokemon Stadium 2
@@musiyevonchilla6769 That's something I did NOT know!
6:00 Worse, Regigias COULDN'T EVEN LEARN PROTECT until Sword and Shield (the only Pokémon that could learn TMs that couldn't).
it also couldn't learn rest
Dude, I just can't believe they nerfed a legendary Pokemon THAT BAD .. like BROOOOO .. HE'S SO COOL, TOO 😭
Thankfully neutralizing gas exists
Gamefreak actually doubled-down on the Defense Curl + Rollout strategy. In gen 7, turning Defense Curl into a Z-move will cause the additional effect of increasing accuracy by one stage, perfect to prevent Rollout from missing and ensuring it goes all the way to the 5th turn. If you're still alive by then.
I used it once on Blissey because I was trying to make a physical set :V
Is the strategy good? Objectively no. But is it funny? Objectively yes. And that alone makes it worth using.
Fun fact: Defense Curl + Ice Ball does the same thing as Rollout. But Ice Ball is known by far fewer mons and gets overlooked.
Only pokemon that uses it to my knowledge is walrein and its pre-evos?
Bergmite family and alolan sandshrew family also get it with a few via breeding or the husui move shop
@@daigustoemeral3710 swampert gets the combination too
It's not even about distribution. The only reason anyone ever remembers Rollout is because of Whitney, and Ice Ball didn't even exist back then.
The Pledges would have probably been better if they didn't make it so only one of the moves used actually does damage
The power of the only move used is doubled tho
And if it was distributed to more than the starters
@@jimmy13morrisonYes, but it's a single target attack
You could do something like Sceptile targets a Rhyperior with Grass Pledge, and then Incineroar uses Fire Pledge on a Ferrothorn (I'm making up a scenario), with the terrain made by the last attacker like usual
That, or the pledge moves worked based off the higher of either attacking stat.
Or even better, turned the move into a spread move. I mean, you're litterally setting a field effect, so clearly it should be able to attack both opponents!
To be fair to gamefreak, most of these are meant to be used in the single player playthrough, when more powerful options are not yet available or to fulfill some other role. Case in point: compounding moves like Rollout, Echoed Voice and Rage. At a moment in the game when your pokemon's strongest move has 60BP, having a self-contained move that can sweep a gym leader's entire team is invaluable. Slaking in particular is in a similar boat, since when playing with shift mechanics, you can switch him out after KOing the opposing pokemon, avoiding Truant turns altogether - and being available very early in the game, it can OHKO most of the mons you'll run into due to its BST alone. Finally, Dream Eater is reasonable in Single Player since AI rarely switches out sleeping mons, while the drain provides free recovery to mons that usually don't have other forms of it in their toolset (think Gengar or Gardevoir), greatly extending their longevity in segments with limited access to Pokemon Centers. In fact, most of these are staples in tougher fan games like Pokemon Reborn (maybe not Dream Eater, if just for the better AI).
If I was to name one combo that just failed altogether, it would definetly be Stockpile chains and Bide. The first initially didn't even give a stat boost, so all it did it waste your turns - and neither Spit Up nor Swallow made up for that. After Gen4 it gave the dual defense boost at least, which could be useful... except unlike Cosmic Power, you couldn't actually use it to boost them all the way up to +6. Worse, using the finishers actually removed the boosts. As for Bide... has anyone actually managed to deal damage with that move? Like, ever?
I can believe that
But... the Pledge moves
They're so f***ing complicated and I'm pretty sure you NEED to trade to get any other starters, and thus, actually make use of the Pledge gimmick
Can you really blame game freak for dream eater though? It works fine, great even, as intended. It's us, who put our own restrictions on sleep, that made it bad
To be clear, I'm not saying sleep clause is bad or a mistake. It's not, I find it extremely important for a healthy metagame. I'm just arguing that it shouldn't be on this list because we chose to make the strategy bad, when this video is more about strategies that are bad of their own merits
If I recall correctly, sleep clause is implemented in the base game of Pokémon Stadium. Attempting to put multiple NPC Pokémon to sleep in a solo playthrough fails because the rule takes effect.
@@solidzack yeah, that's one of the justifications used by smogon, and in the case of stadium I fully agree. But do you think smogon would allow you to sleep as many targets as you want freely if stadium didn't have that restriction?
@@Forever-GM-Dusty in a what-if sleep clause wasn't ever a thing world, I think Smogon would sooner ban all sleep-inducing moves/abilities than invent sleep clause on their own
@@jamesaditya5254 totally fair! In which case, dream eater would still never be used because it would only ever be a punishment for rest, not a valuable asset in a player's toolbox. And again, dream eater being a poor option would be a result of a community ban on inducing sleep, not its own merit of being a bad move by design
I duno, I spammed a lot of action replay Darkri on wifi and on the playground in d/p and it was pretty bad. Darkri kicked ass so it took a wile to realize just how bad dream eater was but it's bad. If everything goes perfectly the payoff for dream eater is 10/20 more base power over Psychic/Extrasensory, a meaningless improvement since THE TARGET IS ASLEEP and can't fight back. Since they can't fight back you can just hit them multiple times. If the opponent switches or the opponent wakes up you do zero damage instead of a huge hit, thus introducing lots of fragility into an otherwise risk free playstyle. Remember, that is base case scenario. Sometimes you don't want to click dark void. In those situations it is just a wasted moveslot. Dream Eater is the player spending a moveslot on a move that only works on pokemon that is effectively already KOed and in that one situation is still worse than something like Psychic/Extrasensory.
It is arguably even more useless in singleplayer. At least things like D-curl rollout is a god tier tactic in early routes. Every time I would think I was being clever move tutoring Dream Eater on a Psychic as it's primary attacking move for a base power increase I would quickly realized all I did was change my primary attacking move from 100% accuracy to 60% accuracy since it is conditional on hypnosis landing.
If anything it'd be cool if plus and minus were given to more mons. It actually is also an option for klinglang and toxtricity
As FSG said about Plusle and Minun, it's a shame that all the other Pokémon who have the abilities are also allergic to Earthquake
look up weedletwineedle! there are more pokemon with that ability and that channel has used them to possibly the fullest potential. Weedle also made all other strategies in this video work lol
The bonus for using it needs to be way better. I used to use a pulse and minun team for fun but they need a speed boost or something from Plus/minus because a SpA boost isn’t good enough
Also klinklang is pretty bad and toxtricity has Punk Rock, so it has something better to be doing
It's on Ampharos as well
You actually undersell Evice. The ability he swaps to Slaking is Own Tempo, meaning if Slowking does get to move again through Truant, it can use Swagger on it to boost its attack two more stages, but it can’t get confused by the move. Diabolical.
Update: My memory was off, that Slowking doesn’t have Swagger, sorry. Still, a formidable tactic already, and that’s another layer one can add.
wow, thanks for pointing that out. That is pretty well thought out for a boss battle. Almost as good as Codel
@@FalseSwipeGaming Okay my apologies, my memory was faulty. The Own Tempo part was right, but apparently his Slowking doesn’t have Swagger. I swore it did. My apology, I haven’t played that battle in almost 20 years, my memory misfired.
plus, the slowking will also try to pass truant to one of YOUR pokemon if it gets the chance to do so.
(also, this reminds me of the stupid scarf contrary spinda + slaking strat that I tested once, where I skill swap contrary onto slaking, which boosts its speed with hammer arm and then I try to boost its attack with charm later in the fight. Did work about as well as you would expect, lmao. -but it WAS fun- )
@@richardmozham I'm inclined to believe it wasn't intentional, knowing that it does learn swagger and that adding it would complete what would have been one of the most diabolical scheme ever conceived in Colosseum/XD history.
Must have been a shameless oversight.
@@IschmarVI That sounds amazing lmao
Surprised to not see Stockpile, Swallow, and Spit Up here. It's a pretty bad gimmick
The worst part is having to go through the dialogue three times in a row to cancel learning the moves.
Incineroar first appears at 8:55
Why this doesn't have so many likes
This comment made Wolfe appear in my head like that Akira clip
Hey, this isn't a Wolfey vid
The funnier part about Plus and Minus is that Game Freak would later add the moves Magnetic Flux and Gear Up, which boost the team's stats (Def/SpDef and Atk/SpAtk, respectively) but only if they have either the Plus or Minus ability
That niche use is why this is probably the first time you've heard of these moves
They can be used as part of a tera raid cheese strategy. Getting +4 def/spdef on the whole team turn 1 is great, and you can set it up again in a single turn if it negates status changes.
I have an interesting idea on how to make Plus/Minus better abilities. Instead of actually requiring either ability to activate, why not make it so that holding a magnet activates the ability? On top of that, make both plus and minus raise BOTH special stats to give a much needed boost.
Yeah, that's the special stats boost is what I figured Plus/Minus did when RSE were new. I just figured Plusle and Minun were just bad Pokemon. It's not perfect since Earthquake is physical but it would have been the basic justification for having both abilities on the field that otherwise do nothing.
Either that or maybe they could have it also work in electric terrain. Not like the mons with that ability are all that good to begin with
The thing they really need to do is just give it to better Pokemon, and Pokemon that aren't immediately dusted by Earthquake
They actually really reworked the abilities to make it work
...And it still failed.
Now, Plus and Plus and Minus and Minus also activate each other. It has been given to some more powerful Pokemon too (Manetric, Ampharos Toctricity... And Klinklang, mainly)
There's also the Magnetic Flux that boosts both defences of Pokemon with Plus/Minus (and Gear Up for Both Attack Stats. Only Klinklang/Magearna learns it though).
Norman used the Skill Swap strategy on his Slaking during his rematches in Emerald as well. But you can counter it by taking out his Spinda and Blissey beforehand, which is easier said than done sometimes because Slaking might KO your own Pokemon first
The official strategy guide for HGSS has a bunch of these listed
I think the one that always stands out to me is:
klutz
+
fling/trick
+
iron ball/sticky barb/ETC
Having to sacrifice your ability, item, AND a turn to do less than an explosion/paralysis/burn is hilariously bad
I remember reading Smogon analysis pages where this is actually considered a viable meta strategy...but it's for like Gen 5 PU.
@@globalistgamer6418 To be fair, Lopunny's Abilities are terrible.
It has its uses, and it's extremely useful for some Pokemon in the Battle Hall (Iron Ball Fling giving fantastic Dark coverage for clearing the Ghost or Psychic categories), but overall it's still not a great idea. Them recommending that as a strategy seems strange...
Another thing to mention is Synchronoise. It’s a move that only hurts Pokemon that have the same type as the user. Because it also does psychic type damage, the move is completely worthless on pure dark types, like Umbreon.
If it would ignore effectiveness and always deal super effective damage, then that would actually be an interesting move. But like this this move doesn't make sense whatsoever considering you cannot even get a STAB out of it because if you do then you deal resisted damage.
And when it was first introduced, it only had 70 base power. A convoluted move that you could only use in very specific circumstances, and it was marginally more powerful than Psybeam. Great.
Inverse Battle Umbreon niche!
I spent a while contemplating the best possible theoretical users of Synchronoise in any conceivable format ever. (They removed it in gen 8 so some of these are only theoretical but hey) The best ones I came up with are: gen 8 glaceon using synchronoise to hit lapras 1/7th harder than freeze-dry and to hit urshifu etc with a psychic max move; gen 9 jolteon switching in on pawmot double shock and counter-killing because your opponent would probably just hit close combat or something; vaporeon or golduck using it to kill lapras; gen 9 sylveon tera'ing into poison to survive a poison type switch-in and then counter-kill. As you can see, all of these are absolutely terrible LMAO.
@@Jayyemi It's so amazing that it got buffed to NEARLY DOUBLE POWER, the biggest power buff a move has ever received between generations, and its still terrible.
I think Minimize / Stomp is pretty funny one.
So you know that whole thing about how Game Freak hates making a fast Spore user? There’s actually a pretty easy way around this in Doubles- take a male Meowstic with Prankster and Skill Swap and pair it with something like Amoonguss. That’s literally all you have to do. This works because Meowstic is faster than most other Prankster Pokémon, and because Prankster Spore can get the jump on anything that would normally threaten Meowstic itself.
Why do people keep forgetting that Kantonian Weezing can also have Neutralizing Gas as of Gen 8?
Who is forgetting about it? G Weezing is just better most of the time which is why it's mentioned more.
@@shadowkirbae4289 Which is funny because I've seen some people who use the N-Gas strat prefer base Weezing since it has fewer weaknesses overall, which is the main weakness of the strategy as a whole (when Weezing goes down, game over). It's definitely an apples to oranges thing though. Both have their merit.
@@shadowkirbae4289 I remember Kanto Weezing being the preferred form in SwSh VGC. Plenty of steel moves there that G-Weezing didn't like taking. Even now in SV, it seems like an even split for both forms in terms of usage, on the in-game ladder at least. I dunno about tournaments very much, though I am aware of Wolfe Glick using G-Weezing at a recent one. But I wouldn't take that as a sign that G-Weezing is strictly better. That said, if you want to use Weezing offensively like he did, the extra STAB type definitely helps.
Kantonians literally better, noone is forgetting it.
@@shadowkirbae4289regular Weezing is better because of its pure poison typing meaning it has fewer weaknesses. When your one job is to just stay on the field, having fewer weaknesses is better
A cool synergy in doubles is Cherrim with Groudon in doubles, because Flower Gift literally gives Groudon boosts to stats it wants and needs (more atk and sp. def go a long way for it)
Unfortunately, keeping Cherrim alive after 1 turn is pretty tough.
He did made a short about that.
@@michaelgum97I stay away from the shorts. They have 'mr beast/AD4K' editing.
Iirc that tactic won World's in the Junior division in gen 4, so it saw some success.
0:23 iron treads beta design
10:55
I feel like Dream Eater really missed it's chance when sleep talk sets were popular
Nightmare was better, it always did 25% of the health of the target. Dream Eater has to deal with Snorlax, the holy god of GSC, basically shrugging off any special attacks.
Also considering that Sleep Talk could call Rest and it would fully heal the mon it would be easily undone.
@@AceAviations2 Sleep is also unreliable due to low accuracy ,maybe if something had spore AND had stab on dream eater, it could potentially be useful? Prob not though, due to sleep clause.
@@et34t34fdf Currently in FireRed my Butterfree has Sleep Powder, Dream Eater, Toxic & Psybeam, & with Compoundeyes, it's totally unstoppable. Idk who told you Sleep Eater is bad but it isn't, at all.
@@AceAviations2 Would a ghost with Curse, Nightmare, and Dream Eater have been viable at all to shut down Sleep Talk sets back then?
@@Barkit Probably not. That's getting to be disgustingly specialized, and if you're relying on dream eater to heal you after halving your HP, your opponent can just swap and you won't get the opportunity.
The most silly thing I have ever experienced in Pokémon battling was when I was using Komala and I got countered by a Latios using Dream Eater with _no_ sleep move
Dream Eater + Sleep Move is bad, but Dream Eater with no sleep move is bad but badass
I think something that also be said about Dream Eater is its accuracy. But it has 100%, you may say. But aside from spore (no pokemon other than Smergle gets Spore and Dream Eater), you have an 80% chance to use slughtly better paychic. If you only want to nuke things and dont care about sleeps utility, psychic may be weaker, but theres a reason thunderbolt is used over thunder for most 'mons
This is the first time I've seen the Stadium 2 Rollout animation and it's the most amazing thing I've ever seen.
Okay but you gotta admit the Detect + Earthquake strat in Colosseum and XD was cool.
And it's actually a viable idea for at least one or two turns if you're not Ground immune and can predict the protect user getting ganged up on.
Giving that strat to the guy with the Shadow Entei in Colosseum was cruel.
@@Ludakolo I always found Entei the hardest to snag thanks to the Earthquake spam.
and then, in the re-fight, the same dude decides to go full nuts and just stuffs the crap out of you with double STAB-levitate earthquake from Flygon and Claydol ... great memories.
That's actually a real strat in VGC. You don't build your entire team around it ofc, but given the ubiquity of EQ and Protect/Detect you would be hard pressed to find a team that doesn't have this combo in their back pocket.
13:49 This one is only a problem because you made up extra rules. In the actual game it works fine
Couldn’t agree more. It works perfectly, the competitive player base has broken this not the developers
Ingame against a bad vanilla AI??? Are you serious? Lmaoooo
If you want to fix Plus and Minus just make it so in addition to the synergy bonus, Plus doubles stat boosts for allies and Minus doubles stat drops for opponents. Higher positives and lower negatives, seems pretty straightforward to me.
Honestly, just give it to more diverse Pokemon. I know it'd be a bit hard to justify, but sure they could design a Steel/Flying or Electric/Flying type with the ability. Just giving us any options that aren't weak to Ground would do a heck of a lot for the strategy.
6:49 GameFreak didn't make Colosseum, Genius Sorority made it, & it had lots of gimmicks! It's good, but not strictly viable to use that as proof of GAMEFREAK'S intent.
Man, I never realized how REALLY impractically complex the Pledges were. Maybe GF can make them a bit more lenient later.
11:58 That Shuckie/Shuckle-lending trainer's name is Mania in G/S/C, & Kirk in HG/SS. Also, he's found in Cianwood, not Olivine.
Anyway, okay analysis video! Thanks for uploading!
The pledges really are good, the issue is the pokemon who get them, but the effects they set up are really great.
Natural Gift seems overlooked, as Hidden Power is instant. Natural Gift is one use and requires a berry. Belch is also not used for requiring HEALING from a berry.
IIRC Natural Gift and Fling actually did see some very light competitive use as a sort of surprise power herb lure set.
What does IIRC mean?
@@juanca2567 If I recall correctly
@@webbowser8834wouldnt change anything but I thought it was if I remember correctly
Belch doesn't require healing exactly, just that it is eaten. Meaning Belch can be used after something like a Passho berry is eaten to reduce water-type damage, or a Liechi berry is eaten to increase attack. Don't ask why I know this, it's still not a great move.
Im always reminded these are written by BKC when i hear his unhinged musings
There are a TON of niche moves and abilities that game freak has impmemented in recent gens that have been pretty useless.
- Terrains before the surge abilities
- Type or type chart changing moves (soak, magic powder, tar shot, trick or treat, electrify for a stretch)
- Very niche doubles moves like rototiller or flower shield that would never make a moveset
- Gimmick signature moves / abilities like Schooling, No Retreat or Filet Away
To be fair no retreat would pretty good in single battles if it wasn’t specifically designed around Fanklins
@@rossthemoss6827 FA, too.
Eh, the Dream Eater one isn't really fair. This move was actually good before later rulings. That's like saying Dark Void was a terrible move because it later got nerfed.
I agree with that too. The only knock to Dream Eater is that the target has to be asleep and the availability of a reliably accurate sleep move to Pokémon that can learn Dream Eater are quite low. But you could abuse that in Double Battles. One mon uses Spore, another uses Dream Eater.
Well, yes and no. Sleep Clause first started as a mechanic programmed into Pokémon Stadium that the competitive community adapted, so Gamefreak made Dream Eater in the same generation they started the rule that crippled the move.
Albeit, Pokémon Stadium did release near the end of the Generation, and to my knowledge Stadium 1 JP didn't have Sleep Clause.
Even without sleep clause Dream Eater is awful. You are giving up a move slot on a move that only works on effectively KOed pokemon. Even then since you are hitting effectively KOed pokemon with it the extra power is wasted because the target can't fight back and it is barely stronger than other psychic moves. It then incurs the risk of doing zero damage if the target wakes up or switches. The heal is also useless as the user is either too frail to gain any survivability or too tanky so it is better off using reliable recovery like recover. Even if it was not uesless it would still be less useful than the special drop you can get from psychic.
In what way was this move "actually good?" Nobody was using this in VGC either. And that's because it's obviously a gimmick and completely inferior to just using psychic.
If you say that dream eater is good you probably have never played Pokemon a part from Vanilla games
Defense Curl/Rollout is fine for singleplayer gameplay, a fact Jrose11 proved in his Gen II Shuckle solo run.
A lot of these are OK strats in single player but fsg only focuses on vgc and competitive scene
Rollout itself is just Singleplayer only cause you will die before being able to Sweep with it Miltank style.
Dream Eater is busted in single player as it's way stronger than Absorb/Mega Drain/Giga Drain and the enemy can't attack and won't switch out
2:20 Fun Fact, to this day Gamefreak are STILL trying to make Plus and Minus a viable strategy. There’s actually a couple of moves that synergise with them.
Gear Up is a Move introduced in Gen 7, and is one of the signature moves of Klinklang. It’s an alternate version of Growth that affects both the user and the partner, but only if they have Plus or Minus as an ability.
Magnetic Flux has a bit of a wider distribution and was introduced in Gen 6, but it boosts both defences by one stage if they have Plus or Minus.
The issue with these moves is that they only proc _if there’s allies with Plus or Minus._ Plusle and Minun aren’t the only Pokémon with the ability, but the vast majority of Pokémon that also have it as an ability vastly prefer different abilities. Having either ability means you’re probably stacking Electric or Steel Type Pokémon, which isn’t good.
Falseswipe been uploading nothing but heat after heat
When do they not?
@@user-uk7ck2pf8s They almost got too formulaic for too long, they managed to create a few formula so at least they can switch them around
You could say it'currently in Overheat
A Heat Wave I dare say
Perhaps the next theorem video could be why move sets (like mix attacking, fast physical, bulky special, etc) are close to everything or the Dragonite theorem
Honestly Gamefreak is more willing to make something that is cool…
rather than balanced or usable
Just look at Mega Kangaskhan! I’m sure they didn’t even thought it would be broken
But it was because they never think about the consequences of implementing something
Like they will most of the time make Pokémon that are essentially better versions of past mons
Like Garchomp as a better Flygon
Or Iron Hands as a better Comkeldurr
Sure there are trades that they can use that the upgrade can
Like Dragon Dance and Wide Guard
But most of the teams prefer the new versions despite of that
Fun fact: pledge teams are actually having a bit of a moment in the current vgc format of reg H. The lower power level means starters like primarina, meowscarada, and greninja are already decently viable, so slotting in pledge moves to activate the swamp and outspeed the entire opposing team (even if they use tailwind) has seen niche success
Plus and Minus should set up electric terrain on top of any boosts. Just makes sense from a real science standpoint and it would be a super cool gimmick that could see use in formats with no miraidon to set terrain.
I gotta tell you man if it gave electric terrain, the sp attack boost AND and omniboost it still wouldnt be worth running plusle and minun in battle
@@ericsegura4977But what about other pokémon instead?
@@turkoositerapsidi even for doubles. Youd still essentially be setting up one of your pokemon to be 2v1 because of how utterly nonthreatening and inconsequential plusle and minun are
@@ericsegura4977 You can have toxtricity and klinklang instead of plusle and minun to get the same effect unless you definitely want plusle or minun.
DefCurl + Rollout might not be something to use in competitive but can be fun in solo stuff.
I remember pokemon battle revolution where a team had clefable and azumarill using belly drum and 4 psych up users, one of them being pure power medicham. Very good in theory, but just didnt really work out
IIRC, that trainer was named Lincoln. He appears in Set 3 of Stargazer Colosseum's Masters Battles.
0:01 STILL waiting for “How Good Was Amoonguss Actually…”
Me too
I’ve ran into pledge teams on reg H ladder totally unironically. There’s some real pressure in using a strategy almost no one knows the mechanics of correctly
Honestly rollout is one of the reasons my bidouf solo’d platinum so I’ve always had a respect for it. It also helps that I’d miss tackle more often even though it’s accuracy is supposed to be better.
4:32 Didn't know Charlie had a twin.
If I remember right, in early Sword and Shield there was a Plus/Minus team high in the ladder that appeared on both Cybertron and Wolfy's channel. It used a Toxicity and Klingklang for the Plus/Minus and had some other weird things on it like a Giga Drain Flygon. It 100% was a closed team sheets kinda team, but it worked.
Mind Reader + Dynamic Punch or its counterparts Lock-On and Zap Cannon are silly combo moves which is easy to play around and heavily telegraphed
5:06 You know that Cofagrigus and the Mummy ability is perfect for this, right? Especially in double battles. It's not meta breaking or anything, but it's a pretty easy combo to get going with the decent benefit of shutting down enemy pokemon abilities as well.
Yeah, I think its just a case of bad timing. Runerigus releasing in the same gen as Galarian Weezing pretty much eclipsed the former strategy despite the fact that having two ability nullifiers would've made the strategy a lot more consistent
What kept it from taking off is Mummy requires contact to spread while Neutralizing Gas applies the moment Weezing switches in. Sure there are upsides for Mummy that it persists if Cofagrigus faints, but the instant blanketing element made Weezing more useful in more scenarios
@@jamesaditya5254 Contact isn't that strenuous of a condition to set this up. I think the bigger issue was that Cofagrigus was the only mon with Mummy, which really hurt the consistency of such a slow and focused strategy. I would be genuinely curious how well this would work Runerigus existed in gen 5.
@@munchrai6396 never said it's a strenuous condition you can definitely make it work, my point being Neutralizing Gas is just way easier to use and more consistent. It also have a number of creative usage to reactivate some abilities to your advantage, such as terrain and weather-enabling abilities as well as intimidate. Notably in gen 8 VGC it could also reactivate Intrepid Sword for Zacian
What if Plus and Minus also gave the Levitate ability, magnets can float under the correct circumstances. The reasoning isn't perfect but it would help.
Or maybe this is too much, but could be 50% boost to both Attacking and defensive stats.
False Swipe Gaming: Rollout + Defence Curl = bad
Whiney Miltank: Thats one bold Statement
There's actually a hilarious way to get truant off slaking in singles I used a few times YEARS ago that involved using a cofagrigus. Basically you just switch in cofagrigus holding red card into a physical contact move, this will give the opposing pokemon the mummy ability. Then you swap in a slaking that knows pursuit to guarantee you can get the mummy ability yourself. It definitely is not viable given the convoluted setup and fact you are potentially running 2 pokemon who aren't the best but it was very funny to do. With pursuit gone the strategy is basically dead as anyone could just switch out now when slaking comes in.
8:58 The elemental monkeys also learn the pledge move of their type, and Silvally is supposed to learn all three but can only learn Grass Pledge due to a coding error with the Move Tutor.
I find it funny how that never got patched. Same with struggle bug staraptor in gen 9 lol
I actually liked the pledges IN GAME, sure its rare to happen naturally but most newer games have a arena-like area where you can use this kind of stuff and in gen 6 specifically i went to the arena a lot😅.
Here are a few I remember growing up:
Defense Curl also boosts Ice Ball.
Sunny Day with Cherrim. You can pair it with Groudon or Koraidon in Ubers to boost their attack with it, as it boosts both of your mons physical attack and special defense.
Weather Ball on a weather team. While 100 base power is okay, the fact that its type is dependent on which weather is out means that there's counterplay whenever there are weather wars. It also doesn't help that the weather setters have better options for special damage in that same power range. The best use is to give more coverage, like giving a Chlorophyll user a Fire move. I also don't know if Weather Ball even gets the damage boost in Sun or Rain.
Sun and Sythesis/Morning Sun/Moonlight. All 3 of those moves heal half max hp normally, 2/3 max in Sun, and 1/4 max in any other weather. Outside of a Sun team, these moves are basically Recover. And during weather wars, they will be useless most of the time because of how meh Sun is compared to the other 3 weathers. Yes, Koraidon and Torkoal can set the sun, but one's an Uber and the other kinda sucks. There's also the problem of how few uses you get from them. All of them cap at 8 uses. Recover and Soft-Boiled got heavily nerfed to this in Gen 9, so they at least doesn't overshadow them from that.
To be fair in one of the first Worlds Cherim+Groundon won a lesser division of World's, the junior division iirc. This was back in gen 4.
Dream Eater is good in game gen 1
There is no sleep clause and you know when opponents wake up and you're usually faster
So how is this a bad one by devs?
I like the idea of Rivalry + Attract. If your opponent has the same gender then they take more damage and if they're the opposite gender then they're immobilized.
Man I'm disappointed you didn't even mention that several other Pokémon also get Plus and Minus as their potential abilities. Definitely should be researched and mentioned better.
IKR, overlooking this sort of thing is an instant dislike from me
Get a life 😂@@munchrai6396
I feel like Rollout was never meant to be competitive so much as it was a severely overtuned gimmick for playthroughs - either teaching players not to let gym leaders (Whitney) run a train of uninterrupted attacks, or giving players who understood the mechanics an option to faceroll trainers other than spamming SE attacks.
This video reminded me of just how ABYSMAL Plus & Minus are as abilities.
I mean, a 50% boost to Special Attack? That's it?? Why only Special Attack? Why only 50%? Why do they have the SAME EFFECT?? WHY was it later on changed to where Plus could activate Plus and Minus could activate Minus?? They're based on MAGNETS!! That's the OPPOSITE OF HOW MAGNETS WORK!! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING??!
I would revert Plus & Minus to only work when a Pokemon with the opposite ability is present. Then, I would change Plus to boost Attack, Special Attack, and Speed all by 50%, while Minus boosts Defense and Special Defense by 80%.
It's stupid how these two complimentary magnet-themed abilites did the same thing, and that that thing had such a little impact on the battle.
To be fair, it predated things like Intrepid Sword.
My favorite doubles strategy was running Klefki or Meowstic with Safeguard and Swagger. So, turn 1 you use Safeguard to protect both of your Pokemon from status ailments and as soon as turn 2 you can either Swagger your primary attacker for +2 attack or commence trolling enemy special attackers with confusion and attack boosted confusion damage.
Ill never understand gamefreaks decision to base pokemon off of doubles, the entire storyline is singles for the most part
We need another Colosseum game.
Facts it sucks that main competition isnt singles, it limits me from wanting to go to a tournament
Doubles is a lot faster, and they only have limited time and space to run tournaments in.
@@icantthinkofaname4723 makes sense tbh
@@icantthinkofaname4723 Huh, that's a good reason. I still dislike doubles, but it is reasonable why they would do that.
The only time I've ever lost against a Plusle and Minun was against Lacey in the Indigo Disk, and that's because I didn't realize her Pokemon were going to be a LV 70. Terrible as they are, trying to beat them with a team of LV 25 and under, kind of a tough ask.
No mention of Truent + entrainment for Durant
Love Entrainment Durant. Hustle is definitely the more reasonable option with the mon's access to Hone Claws, but Truant is a supreme level of cheese that only works when trapping is allowed
The two weirdest ones not included are probably Magnetic flux (a cosmic power for an ally but only if plus/minus is activated, I genuinely doubt it’s ever been used at any level)
And rototiller, a work up for an ally pokemon if they’re a grass type (with some weird distribution)
Magnetic Flux is okay for Klinklang at least who can use it for itself. Rototiller was that move in Gen 6 that made me go "what was the point of making this?"
May I suggest the Tauros theorem: why coverage isn’t everything
Edit: people in the replies are getting mad so it’s the Goodra theorem now
dude gen 1 tauros was the best pokemon in the game
Except Tauros thrives in gen 1 in part because of its coverage, so that doesn't make sense
Goodra, I think is a more fitting option, or electivire
@@gabs-team3247 yes I’m saying it was good because of its coverage (that it still has) but is terrible now
That should be the Electivire theorem tbh
Finally my beautiful beloved children Plusle and Minun get some time in the spotlight... And it's in a video talking about how much they suck
I think Dream Eater needs to be used as more of a mindgame move. Don't put Dream Eater on a sleep Pokemon, put it on a separate tank Pokemon on your team that could use the healing and wont be expected to have it.
Your opponent will be more likely to bring the sleeping Pokemon back out when the sleeper is off the field, so you can fool them into switching toward your favour. It's relatively useless once your sleeper dies, but then it's also only taking up 1 move on 2 Pokemon, which is better than 2 on 1. Plus, your sleeper isn't as likely to die when they swap out right after.
The Pledges are weird because, like, they're supposed to be Game Freak's attempt at turning Pokémon Trainer's Final Smash into a main-series mechanic (which explains why only starters can learn the moves, and why it only attacks once despite requiring two attackers). And like you said, it's actually a really well-done concept - especially when you factor that in.
However, since it is supposed to be PT's Final Smash, if you use all three moves in a Triple Battle, it should just straight up activate all three effects, and display as Triple Finish rather than the combined move's normal name.
Also, if you activate multiple Pledges in a single turn, it should be a spread move. We've got single-target moves now that become spread moves in certain scenarios (Expanding Force and Tera Starstorm are the ones I can think of.)
13:00 One of the best Dream Eater users is actually *Butterfree* in FRLG, since you have 97% sleep powder
You know what is hilarious. In game, there are a few known double battles with Plusle and Minun… you know the fun part? None of them ever know a single special attack.
No Spark (gen 3) and in future gens, they have Nuzzle.
So even though their abilities are active, they see no benefit from it as they only know physical moves.
1st one; you need to remember that Plus and Minus boys weren't meant for competitive, they were meant for gameplay.... they were meant for teaching. So they are meant to kinda suck... the point is for us to beat them. They are an easy team that allows players to learn about abilities and doubles without difficulty..... so it would defeat the purpose if they were good....
4th one, Roll Out worked for Whitney. We need to remember that Pokemon was not originally created for competition in mind.... and it was a boss strategy that was dangerous for players...
One of my favorite doubles strategies involves using a rare move named After You + weather. The strategy is simple: a mon with a speed boosting under weather ability (Chlorophyll/Swift Swim) has to use After You on a mon that has Drought/Drizzle and a move that only hits the rivals (Eruption or Water Spout). It's a bit inconsistent but I used to use it in Gen VII Battle Tree.
Video at 2:21
A bit unfair to call dreameater a weak strategy when it is only weak because sleep has been community semi-banned. If you just play by the natural rules, it is extremely strong since it makes sleep even better.
Slaking DOES prove itself useful against Shauntal once afflicted with Mummy and firing off super effective Faint Attacks and egg exclusive Night Slashes
The funniest part to me about Plusle and Minun is Colosseum. You can obtain Plusle in that game as a gift... but the only way you can obtain Minun is by transferring from the GBA games, and the only way you can do that is to beat the main story. So in the game based on double battles, you can't use the combo that was designed for it in the main campaign.
The moment I see Double Team spam or prankster swagger I immediately assume the fetal position...
I wish double team was actually removed from the series entirely...
One way to nerf double team is that the evasion buffs only last until the Pokemon is hit
Like how in the anime all the fakes that double team create simply disappear when the Pokemon that used double team gets hit
wait till u learn about minimize
@@gamingwithyoty7725
I have brought the no guard machamp for this exact scenario
I also wish moves that cause me problems were removed out the game... 🙃
In the same vein as your last entry, there is Paralysis + Smelling Salts !
Echoed Voice is a fun move, but it's too niche to really be competitive, although it has so much potential in Double and even more in Triple (please bring them back).
Round is kinda similar to the Pledge moves but better, the second Pokémon using it will move directly after the first one!
I couldn't even justify to myself that paralysis + smelling salts was a combo, I thought it was just some random detriment they added to smelling salts. Crazy strategy, almost as bad as the sports moves.
Isn't it sleep?
@@GeorgeDCowley You reminded that there's Wake-Up Slap too!
cutting out 50% of the pokemon and then putting in dlc..to buy them back
That's not true at all. Pokemon can be transferred from old generations after the DLC drops, or traded to a game that doesn't have the DLC. A more legit criticism would be needing to pay money for new one-off Pokemon introduced that no one in their right mind would trade away.
@@DrMintster okay fair enough, you got a very good point! yet as a new player being confronted with a not very user friendly tool such as pokemon home that discriminates so many actually legit pokemon and not telling you why it can‘t be transferred over is such a shame. especially because we‘re talking about the biggest media franchise in the world, i know it‘s a lot of merch etc involved but still i‘m not really super happy of the way nintendo and game freak are dealing with the whole transfer debate. I still do enjoy scarlet and violet but for completely different reasons then something for example as Pokemon Platinum or Heartgold.
The return on Dexit is something that you don't really see unless you look closely. The framework to port all 1000 Pokemon between games is possible but it results in Pokemon getting no visual upgrades between games and reducing the amount of new Pokemon introduced in a generation. If you look at each generation after Black and White, you can see that each gen was lower than the previous lowest 100 from Gen 2. But Sword and Shield overcomes that 100 mark when you count regional forms with the early effect of Dexit. Scarlet and Violet were able to go well over 100 plus rework various models and add textures with Dexit in full swing.
@@PIKMINROCK1Regional forms really shouldn't count though as they're still the same Pokémon species. Just a new makeover.
@@DrMintsterSo what you're saying is that you don't need to buy the dlc to be able to transfer the newly added Pokémon from Pokémon Home to a Scarlet or Violet.
one of the three things i know about vgc is that it's not 6v6 like smogon singles, it is instead 4v4, so you aren't wasting a third of your team on +/-. you are wasting half of your team on it, and if you don't bring them into a battle, then the opp knows what your mon in the back is once the third one comes in.
also, defense curl and rollout at least have usage in the scott's thoughts-style solo runs, so that's something.
Who remembers the move Charge?
I do.
You see it a modest bit in Tera raid battles from Miraidon, actually.
@@DMSwordsmaster
Yeah, if you want to OHKO the water or flying tera with its signature move.
@@michaelgum97 As someone who used to do a lot of raiding, I can safely say that yeah, that's basically it. Having actually helpful teammates do things like run Fake Tears/Metal Sound, it's very easy to annihilate certain bosses.
I never used it on mine though, I prefer taunt instead since it's more generally useful and relies less on teammates.
It’s so cool seeing how far this channel has come over the years 🙏 been watching from the start and just love your work
WHERES THE CHARIZARD THEOREM AKA WHY POPULAR ISNT EVERYTHING?!
Because it doesn't make sense as a theorem. It's literally the first thing anyone learns when playing competitive, that their favorite pokemon in game aren't always good competitively. It doesn't need a theorem
@@gabs-team3247 and yet the Popular Mons use it competitive is not everything so My THEOREM STILL UP BABY
@ThePeasantRock16
The Charizard theorem: why popularity leads to gamefreak giving you buffs every generation just so you don't suck
@@edra2005 YEP THATS THE POINT BABY BUT AS WELL APPLIES TO THOSE CERTAIN MONS ARE POPULAR ACCORDING TO THE COMMUNITY FOR CERTAIN MID ESTRATEGIES
coz this is not charizard theorem
this is pikachu theorem
I'm glad you mentioned regigigas and galarian weezing is actually a good combo that works. well, "good" might be a bit much. let's say usable and at the very least not terrible
8:16 I forgot about the Pledge moves until recently because I had literally never used or even seen their special effects even once due to how unlikely it is you'll ever naturally come across them. I recently began streaming and heavily playing Dynamax Adventures from Sword and Shield and it's only from playing this particular game mode that these special effects have occurred (the Kanto and Hoenn starters know the moves) and I realized: "Hey this is the first time I've EVER seen this!!" I didn't even know that it holds off doing the first move 😅 EDIT: Oh and I didn't know about the "whichever Pledge is super effective against the other Pledge" is the Pledge USED regardless of the slower Pokémon using it 😅😅😅
A mention I was expecting: mind reader and lock on. When I was 10 I screamed after recieveing a sure hit dynamic punch from Chuck's Poliwrath, then I learned I could just switch out
Yeah but consider the alternative in using Lock-on with Zap cannon on Magneton. Or better yet, Mind Reader Articuno and Sheer Cold in gen 3.
Yeah yeah, but no one expects the Smeargle Pledge next to Skeledirge or Primarina
Taunt+Sucker Punch would be an interesting gimmick used, or move combos like Torment+Substitute+recovery move/item or Encore+(same other factors as Torment set, maybe with Soundproof or a contact status ability for either) for enterprising players. Those would mostly be for stallbreaking for the first & stall based sets in the opposite ways for the latter two with mono-attacking STAB, but still interesting to look into. Yet another worth looking into would be Substitute+Throat Chop if gimmicky
I used to run a DC Rollout P Groudon in AG, just for the chance to scream "ROADO ROLLER DAAAAAA" if i ever got that fifth hit to go off and something got obliterated
A reminder that Pokémon Colosseum gives you a gift Plusle that's half the level of your starters, and doesn't even give you a Minun to go with it.
Amphorous and Toxtricity get plus or minus so its not to horrible 3:32
Bad Strategy that comes to mind are the “boy do I love my Grass type partner” moves Flower Shield and Rototiller. So incredibly specific