DoubleJ

Had me a good lol at the [Discussion] HP thread. These kids just don't understand the struggle.

Kangaskhan has relatively great speed in the UU Tier. Even 0 Speed investment slays Scizor and allows you to get that Fire Punch off care free for a revenge kill (if you run Jolly you don't have to worry at all). Max 156 Speed Stat is pretty fearsome too, tying with Zangoose, but this isn't relative to the discussion at all. Just wanted to point that out.

Just sayin' my shop hustle is better than yours.

Bump

So is it time to lessen the effect of luck in our games and formulate tournaments like the Master of Masters' Series was held? Great video by the way.

Added new wishlist and Shiny Slowbrah description

I'm somewhat impartial to sell that baby since it's my first Godly OT, but if I get low on dough I'll probably come whispering. Might need a bit more for that one though, 4x31 with egg moves and female to prep that physical specimen. I appreciate the offer though mate.

bump, +1 for jayfeatskydd

Hmmm I'm sensing some hostility from individuals, but I don't think my point is being made clearly enough relating grinding and crits. 1. You put an exceptional amount of time into team building 2. You compete against other talented players in official events with great prizes 3. You want to play to compete via skill not luck 4. Losing because of luck is very discouraging after all of the time that you put in building that team This thread was a point I wanted to make, not upset the community because it ventures away from canon. So I guess the next time any of you lose to crit I don't want to see the bitching.

Update: Had back to back city league games last night. First game was pretty chillax with my team being fairly superior to our opponents. Despite a close score at the end I got to basically just kick back, knock in a few long bombs, and not have to fight for much. Unfortunately the second game was incredibly competitive (fun), but this proved that my ankle is still crap. Going to be rehabbing and recovering all week until our next game. Here's to improvement.

We all understand the risks of the game and the excitement of catching a critical hit to save your bad playing ass, but in the end is it really all that healthy? This is one RNG mechanic that we don't have an answer for (Aside from Freeze which can last forever and a half). We have clerics, we have guts, and we have lum berries for secondary effects. We have nothing to prevent crit aside from Shell Armor. Idk, maybe I'm crazy since you all seem to be pro-crit, but just sit back and think about how much better the game would be without a critical hit swaying the tide of a match. Not really sure what you're getting at. If you don't grind this game you honestly can't play on a competitive level. After all that hard work you suddenly get crit and lose the entire match because you're momentum and game plan were shot to shit. So, what are you talking about?

How many times have you had that game plan played out so perfect in your head that there was no possible way you could lose. Ok, I switch in Metagross here and take at max 50% damage while I have about 75%. I can even activate my salac and either kill this poke or force it to switch. DoubleJ sends out Metagross. KingBowser's Gengar used Shadow Ball... Critical Hit! Metagross fainted. GGnore. This is an instance where absolute luck trumps skill. It's the most frustrating thing in the game. Couple that with secondary effects like paralysis, burn, and freeze, and you can have a situation where one pokemon doesn't even get to attack and is instead just fodder. I myself enjoy secondary effects and don't see them as that much of a factor with the plethora of clerics available, the use of lum berry, and also pokemon with the ability GUTS. Yet Critical Hits are something that is blatantly silly. We even nerfed Critical Hits a few updates ago, but they still randomly just fuck you. I would prefer that this occurrence be dropped as a mechanic in this game. I would love to see skill triumph luck and not have to worry about the dangers of critical hits. A critical hit is so dangerous that there have been countless times where me and my teammates refuse to make an otherwise safe switch-in just because of that risk. tl;dr Critical Hits are uncompetitive. And with the amount of grinding in this game losing because of luck is just mind numbingly painful. Please remove Critical Hits altogether.

Ya you need them good ut's and lots o' cash. That start from scratch game is just silly.

Ya Im going to have to back out too. Realized I signed up to volunteer at a clinic that morning. Would love to see this later on.

Update: The power of stall pays off once again as Burntzebra manages to inch his way to another Standard UU title. Congratulations to Zebra for his performance today. Despite being DQ'd in the First Round for Time Clause he was able to make a case to continue the match and finish his opponent off within the newly allotted time. He can thank his opponent during that round for not applying the AFK button when Burntzebra left for approximately six minutes to have some food, and also to a timely crit in the 45th minute from what I heard. Yes the salt is real, but you can't deny that Burntzebra has the skills to work his way through our competitive field time and time again. Will we ever find an answer to his stall play or will we continue to fall in matches 40+ minutes long? Find out next time on... PokeMMO!

Stan.

Probs add nature to the templates as well

Fitness is life. Fitness is love. I hit the gym yesterday for an amazing Back and Biceps workout in the early morning. Got some much needed rest the night before so I think that helped out a bit. Got a couple hoops games tonight on my busted up ankle so let's hope things go well. Over and above all though it's really awesome to see the PokeMMO Community come together on something and genuinely be fruitful about it. A lot of us have had our differences in the past and sometimes things became quite vile, but here we are sharing our experiences, passing on advice, and coming together. It's sweet yo. Ok fruity rant over. Thanks for your time.

I'm not Fred, but here is some insight form someone with a Double's Master: Lead with something that has Fake-Out and something that is fast or carries Intimidate, maybe something that combines those two options. Fake-out the most emergent threat while assessing what you can do with your second poke, whether that is by performing a straight forward attack or swapping to something more advantageous. Pray that your opponent doesn't Fake-out your Fake-out poke with a speed-tie win. After this initial move continue to play dependent on your own vulnerabilities. If you have something on the field that can be killed by your opponent, the chances that your opponent will make that killing play are high. If your opponent is unphazed by anything you have and has the opportunity to set-up then you should probably decide what in your party can slow 'em down and swap accordingly. Be conscious that something that can Explode will likely explode when given the opportunity. Protect yourself as needed. Doubles is a dance so play this out until it's GG, but unlike in OU, you may have to think about 2-3 or maybe 4 end-game scenarios for you to pull out a win, compared to Singles where you typically have 1 or 2 set game plans. Gl NurseCraig. See you this weekend.

Problem solved. Close the thread. Thank you Coolio brah.

Scizor is a very effective wall-breaker that can be stopped by several notable pokes dependent on its moveset. The most common moveset that I have seen in UU thus far appears to be: Bulky w/ Swords Dance, Steel Wing, Superpower, Morning Sun This set though is stopped quite well by Slowking. The benefit of Slowking is that it also has enough bulk to reliably not be Pursuit trapped unless it is at low health. With access to Slack-Off, Slowking makes for an impressive check to Scizor, resisting both of its primary attack options and hitting back with neutral STAB Surf or Flamethrower if it so chooses. An offensive style of play can also defend against Scizor considering its low speed and 4x Weakness to Fire Attacks. Having access to Fire Punch, HP Fire, and various other Fire attacks makes using Scizor risky when looking at an offensively oriented team. You can make a very balanced team of pokemon that all carry a Fire-attack if you so choose, slowing down other walls such as Vileplume, Steelix, and Exeggutor. What you need to do though is avoid having risks for Scizor to set-up and sweep you. These risks would include Claydol without HP Fire, Clefable without Flamethrower, Vileplume without HP Fire, and various other things that Scizor can switch freely into, Swords Dance, and Morning Sun away any accrued damage. So basically what I'm saying here is that if you bring a wall-team against a Scizor and lack an answer for it, you will most definitely have a tough time against it considering it itself is a "wall breaker". Certain walls can defend against Scizor by carrying flamethrower, such as Clefable. This limits the opportunities for Scizor to switch in and set-up a Swords Dance. With all of this in mind, I want to touch on the idea that Scizor is a healthy addition to our UU environment in my opinion. Some benefits to using Scizor would be its ability to break through some of the common walls, its immunity to Toxic, and its resistance to Normal-type attacks which are deadly. We have a limited number of pokemon that can resist STAB Normal-attacks well, and that list only goes down further when you toss on CB. Having an additional poke immune to Toxic is very beneficial as well. Toxic spam has become so common that in the official today I played an opponent that had 4 of his 6 pokes carrying this move. Either this is our only answer to a stall method, or this is just the result of stall itself. Nevertheless, as I've said countless times in countless other threads the decision to make a ban is ultimately up to the respective councils. We as a community can only share our insight. If something is deemed healthy or determined to not be worthy of a ban, we simply need to adjust for that risk as it continues to be a part of our tier.

Saw a pretty mean Curse-Miltank today. Was able to get to +6 and sweep. Still pretty certain that its speed and bulk make it ban-worthy with the use of Curse in our meta.

So now we're talking about the post-lax meta when Lax hasn't even been banned yet. The OU council doesn't want to ban this thing, and hell they don't even want to suspect this thing it seems. Looking for an active council. Looking for feedback on what may or may not be done.

IGN DoubleJ