MasterShaper

Maybe someday you'll make it to one of their performances - Arnie Roth claimed at London that they'll be running it for quite a while to go Hmm, perhaps some explanations are in order for the apparent hodgepodge of songs. --- For the starting, I wanted something distinctly FF/KH, and something that could get my attention. Sephiroth's theme fit the bill, so there it was. After that, I wanted something that fit an introductory theme, which resulted in the sequence for 2 and 3. Enough with the introductions, then. I then moved on to something jumpy and lively to start the playlist for real. 4 and 5 were good for that. 6's choral bits went well with the guitar in 5, so I worked onwards from there, leading to the brief interlude with and the marching band sequence from 8 to 12. Battle time, then. 13 to 16 were battle themes that went well in that order, and 17 was a fitting theme for a break in the battles. 18 and 19 wound down the battling bits somewhat, to be washed down with 20 and 21. 22 to 24 were intended to effectively mark the end of the first half of the playlist. Yes, I use them to study. So the breaks in the playlist indicate it's time for a break (after approximately 90 minutes, attention starts fraying). Onto the second half, the opening sequence - 25 and 26 - was energetic, just as in the first half. The following parts from 27 through 31 are mostly soothing tunes meant to ease me back into work (it's always harder to get back into the groove, somehow). Then, once I'm back in the loop, 32 and 33 build-up for 34, which dovetails somewhat with 35 (also a good alarm clock, since I might nod off during the second half). 36 through 40 are faster-paced tracks that ease in some adrenaline, allowing me to accelerate my work a little. 41 is a brief breather, followed by 42, which is probably one of the finest dramatic pieces I've heard for FF/KH orchestral performances. 43 winds down the effect of 42 a little, followed by the depressing 44. 45 starts mellow but blasts its way to a nice finish, backed up by the final piece, the classical Victory Fanfare from FF. When I hear this, I either a) hit Play again, or am already done with my work, or c) switch playlists. --- And yes, it was designed to mimic the sequence of a regular orchestra. Have a friend who's a fiend for orchestrals, and he's been a bad influence on me.

It's been a while since I've been around these parts, it seems. And from what I've gathered by skimming through some threads, my housemates have been notoriously gossipy about me in my absence (probably only matched by the apparently missing Gossip Gardevoir/Rumour Roserade/Mysterious Masked Mon). ANYWAY. I'll be attending Distant Worlds: Kuala Lumpur this Sunday. Seeing as I'm a sick, sick fan of music from FF and KH, and love the orchestral versions even more, I decided to make a huge playlist of my favourite orchestrals from those two franchises. Each and every song has been placed based on the dominant instruments and mood, I suppose. And all good music deserves to be shared * All FF tracks marked as Orchestrals would be from Distant Worlds, all KH tracks marked as Orchestrals would be the opening sequences for the games, and those marked as Drammatica would be from that very performance. Anything left simply without a specific label would be an original soundtrack piece. ** For those who are interested, the composers are listed separately. And for those who are interested, the composer lists (just the primary composers). I believe in giving credit where it is due, after all. --- It's probably a whopper, at 3 hours and 24 minutes (or at least, that's on my computer, with the versions I have on file). Hopefully, someone else would find as much enjoyment as I do from this... stew of music. I suppose it IS a stew, especially since it's more or less taken a year to put together

Aside from the legendary 'I HEARD U LIEK MUDKIPZ', I'm pretty sir there are many more similar memes and comics out there So, share them?

I'm not too active around these parts due to a pesky geographical issue, but welcome Trust me - being unconventional with the battle tactics can pay-off well

Just my humble suggestions for both the abilities and the design For the design, may I propose a possessed suit of armor? Golurk's already set the precedent for an automaton-like ghost, and so it should be workable. From there, it stands to reason that the abilities could be along the lines of Battle Armor, Broken Armor, or Sturdy (which do fit steel-types, anyway). Come to think of it, a ghost with Sturdy may indeed be formidable, given how nasty the likes of golurk have already proven themselves to be. May sound like it defeats the purpose of a speedy staller, but do keep in mind that if it's fast but can't take hits, it might as well not exist XD

Interesting concept... a speedy stall pokemon. Considering that most stall teams seem to be centered around weather, I suggest the following pokemon - might be interesting. Since Bullet already proposed Ghost/Steel (I definitely love that pairing), here's something else I've been thinking about Couldn't help it - I just like ghosts. --- Ghost/Fighting - No double weaknesses - Weaknesses: Ghost/Psychic/Flying - Resistances: Bug/Rock/Poison - Immunities: Fighting/Normal - Reduces the effectiveness of an opponent's Sucker Punch or Pursuit - Has STAB against one of its type weaknesses (Psychic) - Has STAB against an opposing type that normally nulls one of its types (Normal) - Immune to Mach Punch and Vacuum Wave (I'm looking at you, breloom and conkeldurr) Stats: - HP: Maybe 90-100 - Atk/SAtk: Maybe 60-80 - Def/SDef: Maybe 90-100 - Speed: Maybe 110-120 Appearance: - For some reason, I like the idea of clothes that have no wearer. Maybe a haunted judo outfit or something - would go with Overcoat. Think the Phantom from Kingdom Hearts to get a general idea of how I see it (incidentally, I somehow always envisioned a Ghost/Steel type to be an animated suit of armor). Possible Abilities: - Overcoat (for weather) - Intimidate (hell, it's a ghost, ?) - Cursed Body (haunted shit) - Levitate (more haunted shit) - Pressure (... it's a ghost) - Mummy (gimmicky, but useful sometimes) - Shed Skin (would also go with the suggestion of a haunted clothing item) - Wonder Skin (similar to Shed Skin) - Speed Boost (just because it's a speedy staller) Movepool: - Status moves such as Will-O-Wisp, Toxic, and Hypnosis - Recovery moves such as Recover and Moonlight - Defensive moves such as Substitute or Double Team - Perish Song (could possibly be horrible if a Tagged chandelure was an ally) - Priority moves to put targets out of their misery if needed (its typing alone would give it possible access to Sucker Punch, Vacuum Wave, Pursuit, and Shadow Sneak - Mach Punch sounds hilarious for something dead) Strategy: - Umm, stall? Use its speed to inflict status problems on opponents and get your Substitute or whatever up. Then just pepper the opponent with hits to annoy them further. --- Just as a suggestion - doesn't really do much beyond what ghosts normally do, but has the capability to give those bastard eggs (a.k.a. blissey and Eviolite chansey) a run for their money if things came down to a stalling match.

Hmm, another chandelure thread - at least this time the OP included stats instead of ranting aimlessly XD Seriously, I view chandelure with Shadow Tag very simplistically - if it gets a revenge kill on one of my team members, and that one kill could cost me the match, there are only two real reasons for such an incident: 1 - The revenge-killed pokemon was actually the centerpiece of my team (unlikely, since most teams tend to have more than one sweeper - even if the man sweeper is down, the backup sweepers typically should be able to handle a chandelure. If you tell me that you only have ONE attacker that can hit a ghost or fire pokemon... I pity you if you ever take on Shade, Cal, or Amaria). 2 - I goofed up my team construction severely (if a team is THAT reliant on ONE pokemon to hold its own, there's definitely a problem with it). Now, chandelure has respectable defenses. Problem is, priority absolutely rapes it if the attacker has STAB and a decent attack stat behind it. Some common examples could be: - Dugtrio with Sucker Punch (also traps the chandelure). - Toxicroak with Sucker Punch (with or without rain, works either way). - Conkeldurr with Payback (I'm iffy on this one, but unless chandelure has Psychic to whack it with, it might survive to strike back). - Gallade/dusknoir/shedinja with Shadow Sneak (limited usage, but respectable nonetheless). Even a cacturne, shiftry, or bisharp could rip chandelure a new one (again, they are uncommon, but shiftry seems to be a tad popular in sun teams of late, at least on PO and the PBC. Cacturne has appeared in sand quite a bit, too). I'm going to assume that most players wouldn't lead with a chandelure unless they somehow knew what their opponent was going to run (read - Shade XD). So it's probably reasonable to assume that by the time chandelure reveals its presence, you'd have seen at least some of its teammates - which obviously makes its escapes a risky affair for the unfortunate soul that gets sent out to take the hit in its place. One case I recall clearly on this server is that of Titania vs. Saya - Titania's lucario was against Saya's tyranitar with a +2 SAtk boost (Nasty Plot), but hit the tyranitar with a Shadow Ball instead of Aura Sphere (that would have killed the tyranitar). This may have cost Titania the lucario, but her reasons for it were quite clear - she expected the scarfed chandelure to come in and get cozy with Flamethrower/Overheat (can't recall which it had) while the Aura Sphere hit nothing. Entry hazards aside, switching a pokemon in to protect a chandelure and vice-versa could easily go bad, given that most players are capable of prediction to an extent. Not knowing your opponent's moveset and team works both ways. ANYWAY. The point I'm trying to make is that maybe, just maybe, there is no need for a counter to chandelure (and from that, no dire need for it to be made uber). OU has enough pokemon in it for chandelure to get consistently beaten, Shadow Tag or not. You could bring in all the calculations and stats you want to, which is fine, but at the end of the day, the numbers only go so far - the human element will ultimately determine the outcome of matches (probability accounts for a significant bit of it also, but that's a topic for another day). Just my humble opinion - have yourself a good day

[quote name='Winter' timestamp='1309821077' post='17254'] Nice..I don't really have any corrections..Aerial Ace? Most Ninjask sets usually have X-Scissor. [/quote] Haha, since it's a ghost team, figured that the psychics were not a problem, and golurk is very capable of handling dark-types with DynamicPunch. Dusknoir and shedinja can take care of the plants, otherwise. And ironically for a ghost team, fighting types gave me headaches, such as scrafty. So ninjask handles those (my chandelure also has Psychic).

[quote name='Amethyst' timestamp='1308381171' post='16284'] Also if anything, HP's type should be changed, probably to something that does better against other electrics. And the other moves ought to be special to make better use of Lighting Rod. Megahorn is strong enough you might be able to get away with it, especially since it'll help against grass types, but isn't there a better choice than Waterfall? [/quote] It was just an experimental team that hasn't actually been used in a while - will need to play with it a little more before I can determine a good set for seaking

So tachycardia basically means accelerated heartbeat - something that this team concept has been reasonably successful at achieving on the PBC/Smogon/PO servers in this last week I love my ghost types, I really do. Problem is, there are annoying things like excadrill, jolteon, and Choice Scarves out there that tend to make life problematic for them. Ghosts may be capable of massive damage, but those that CAN take a hit or two usually have significantly reduced offensive capabilities. And my luck is HORRIBLE with Will-O-Wisp. So I decided to break my monotype habits for once, and include ONE pokemon of a different type in my ghost teams --- Ninjask @ Focus Sash Aerial Ace Swords Dance Baton Pass Protect --- So it's basically a ninjask meant to Baton Pass some speed and/or attack to my ghosts. If my opponent opens with a fighting type, one Swords Dance and an Aerial Ace usually downs the fighting type. Otherwise, I'll use Protect and Baton Pass as needed. The usual physical attackers I use with the Swords Dance are: - Golurk @ Colbur Berry Earthquake DynamicPunch Stone Edge Protect - Dusknoir @ Lum Berry Shadow Sneak Fire Punch Ice Punch Trick Room - Shedinja @ Focus Sash Shadow Sneak X-Scissor Will-O-Wisp Swords Dance - Sableye @ Leftovers Brick Break Taunt Will-O-Wisp Recover --- Golurk's a basic hammer that I use to handle attackers with Sucker Punch. Dusknoir has TR in case I don't get to set-up a speed Pass, and shedinja's SD is in case I don't get to pimp my attack using ninjask. Sableye has yet to be actually tested, but I'm thinking it'll actually be pretty nasty if I get to set it up - it's basically a Prankster that gets pimped to attack normally. None of them have outstanding speed, but if ninjask can stall for even a +2 or +3 boost, you'd be surprised at the number of opponents that they can outspeed. And of course, since they have solid defenses, not much can OHKO them barring super effective hits. Movesets I used are a matter of preference - you could try your usual favorites, and I'm sure the attack/speed boosts wouldn't hurt them - I particularly enjoyed a match where my opponent lead with a dragonite - he allowed me three SD with ninjask as he DD'ed, and I let ninjask use Protect to get +6 speed. Then, I swapped shedinja into his Outrage XD He forfeited after I took out his fifth pokemon, a ferrothorn LOL. Shedinja died after Iron Barbs hit it, I still had ninjask and the other four ghosts. Moral of the story? Never try to out-stall a Baton Passer, or at least set up some entry hazards for them... LOL Golurk sweeps are fun, to the point of making an opponent ask me what kind of evil crap I was pulling for 'that thing to outspeed jolteon'. Thoughts?

@ Dragonz996 - That's the fun part; trying to beat them using a water monotype On the topiic of poliwrath, I *have* tried it - problem is the prevalence of priority moves and the opponent swapping out the egg before I can swipe it. Plus, poliwrath's defenses aren't anything worth writing home about. Lapras with Curse is also alright, but has more type weaknesses as opposed to swampert - Ice Shard's priority is a plus, though. That's the reason why I brought up the swampert concept to begin with - it's proven itself to be relatively useful on the PBC/Smogon/PO servers thanks to its obscurity

[quote name='Amethyst' timestamp='1307601767' post='15610'] Personally I have to rely on Politoed's Perish Song to down these things, which usually means stalling out the enemy team until they're the last standing. Definitely not the best solution, but these are pretty creative. Alternatively, I think the popular Hydration abusers can out-stall them, but that's also not a preferable plan... You could also trick-scarf from Rotom- there might be something better yet than Rotom, but that's the first thing that comes to mind. Starmie too, Specs though instead. Oh, and there's also that Taunt-Jellicent set Bullet posted... [/quote] Haha, I rarely run politoed, since I'm having fun trying out the other water types out there So I'm actually pretty clueless about Hydration and Rain concepts I did use lapras to Perish Song and Block them before, though - didn't work too well unless they actually stayed in the battle for the Block. Whirlpool was another option, but it was unpredictable. The only time this really worked was in doubles, when I used gastrodon to Block and lapras to Perish Song at the same time. My ghost teams tend to handle them better, ironically - sableye can rape a blissey/chansey with Toxic/Taunt/Mean Look to stall them to death.

It's me again XD As some of you might have figured from my previous posts in this part of the forums, I enjoy running water monotype teams Unfortunately, that leaves me with one major problem - those bastard eggs (a.k.a blissey and eviolite chansey). Cloyster offered a means of killing them, but their defenses - weaker, but nonetheless capable - often managed to wall even a Shell Smash/Icicle Spear combination. At first, I used to use my physical empoleon to finish them: - Pang-Pang (Empoleon) (M) @ Air Balloon Trait: Defiant EVs: 212 Atk / 248 Def / 48 SDef Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk) - Aqua Jet - Rock Slide - Brick Break - Swords Dance - Alas, while he was immune to the Toxic that the bastard eggs usually carried on them, Thunder Wave was something that allowed them to parahax him before finishing him with Seismic Toss (needed the Swords Dance at least twice to make Brick Break really hurt). So I finally decided to try a move that I usually avoided for its stat-reducing nature; Superpower. - Moivre (Swampert) (M) @ Lum Berry Trait: Damp EVs: 136 Atk / 176 Def / 84 SDef / 112 Spd Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk) - Earthquake - Superpower - Rock Slide - Curse --- SO. Swampert is immune to Thunder Wave, which nulls the parahax thing (I'm seriously unlucky with parahax). Lum Berry ensures that he gets at least one Curse in without status ailments, and before the eggs can usually get a second Toxic up, he usually smacks them with a +1 Superpower (since I minimize defense on this swampert, that's a 300+ Atk stat after the Curse). Since the eggs are usually damned slow, even with a -1 drop on Spd I can hit first. The reason why this works is because most players that run blissey/chansey forget that swampert can learn Superpower; I assume that they think I'm Cursing to prime swampert for a Waterfall/Stone Edge/Earthquake. My stats for Atk/Def get dropped, but the Curse compensates for that This method also works for dealing with ferrothorn, though I typically try to get two Curses in for that. To counter the speed drop, I simply swap out (if needed). My base stats are usually capable of withstanding an Earthquake from excadrill if need be thanks to swampert's bulk, and so that blasted mole also goes down with one Superpower/Earthquake. Another notorious opponent that this swampert has taken down is volcarona - surprisingly annoying for my teams since I don't run entry hazards that often. Thoughts?

@ Slut - This was a sort of 'in your face' thing for the folks at Smogon, since some of them seem to think water types are doomed to be slow thanks to the Drizzle ban XD @ Winter - I use water/ghost monotype teams, so for water these are the other three: --- Rotom-W (Levitate) Thunderbolt Shadow Ball Will-O-Wisp Pain Split - Pelipper (Keen Eye) Surf HP Grass Soak Tailwind - Gastrodon (Storm Drain) Earth Power Scald Ice Beam Recover --- Other water-types I've used before instead of the non-Tailwind pieces are as follows: - Empoleon (physical attacker) - Sharpedo (physical, duh) - Swampert (also physical) - Cloyster (got to love being physical!) - Octillery (special) - Jellicent (special) - Kingdra (special)