Balls to the Wall: a guide to HO by Slant and Destructive Skitty

[slant]

Balls to the Wall: A Guide to Hyper Offense
by Slant and Destructive Skitty

Why Hyper Offense?

So you read the battling 101 guide and decided that for your next team, you want to go balls out crazy and pummel your opponent into submission. Great choice! Who needs stupid shit like defense when you can just blow the opposition into oblivion with six dragon dancers? That's the general essence of hyper offense: stacking a bunch of offensive pokemon takes away any breathing room your opponent has; if you stack 5 or 6 sweepers on a team then sooner or later one of them will break through your opponent's defenses and leave him helpless.

Okay...while that might be the general mindset, I might have exaggerated a little. Since the tiers are all quite balanced, against a well built team you can't just mindlessly set up and expect your pokemon to hulk out and destroy your opponent. In reality, as with most things pokemon, it requires careful planning and precision before you can pull off a sweep.

Why go with hyper offense?

• Feels good to demolish your opponent.
• Games end really quick!
• ORAS power creeps means that hyper offense is more powerful than ever!
• It's a really fun battle style once you get the hang of it!
• There is almost no luck component involved.

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It's all part of the plan: the hyper-offense mindset

I really struggled in figuring out the organization of this guide. Normally I would organize the guide into a 'teambuilding' section and then a 'battling' section, but in this case I hesitated a bit since the two are so closely linked, i.e. once you are finished teambuilding, you should have an exact blueprint of how the battle should go. This usually comes about because of two reasons:

• You are setting the momentum. In most cases, a match between two players is a struggle to see which player can execute his gameplan and successfully disrupt his opponent's. However the greatest strength of a well-played hyper offense team is that you are constantly pressuring your opponent to the point that he cannot successfully execute his strategy since all he is focused on is surviving your onslaught. Put another way, this means that a hyper offense team starts disrupting the opponent's strategy from turn 1.
• Hyper offense requires almost no prediction. In normal matches, there is always an element of prediction: if the opponent stays in then you should use move X, but if he switches out to another pokemon, you should use move Y. In the case of hyper offense though, this is no longer an issue. Go ahead and attack with move X. Since hyper offense pokemon tend to be speedy with great coverage, even if your opponent switches out, you can outspeed next turn and hit them hard with the appropriate attack. Similarly, you shouldn't be too worried about switching vs. your opponent. Since you have almost no defense to speak of there is no point in playing switching games with your opponent anyways.

Observe how luck is no longer a factor here. If all goes well then YOU are the one that is setting the tone of the match, for the whole game. OK, but now here comes the required disclaimer: it is really easy to play badly using a hyper-offense team. The difference is that if you lose, it is due to user error rather than luck. Hyper offense teams tend to have a higher skill requirement than other styles, which is why I don't recommend it to beginners. The main issue is, now that prediction has been taken out of the equation, we can focus on the endgame starting from turn 1. This is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing since it is possible to see into the endgame from the beginning, but a curse since it significantly complicates the analysis.

I feel like I need to reiterate the last point one more time since it is at the heart of hyper offense. In a standard balance/bulky offense team, it is impossible to see so far into the endgame, so the best you can do is come up with some short term plans, for example 'set up stealth rock, volt turn a bit to get some chip damage and spread status, and go from there.' However in hyper offense, ideally you need to come up with your entire gameplan starting from the beginning. So from turn 1 you need to start thinking about who to keep alive, who to sacrifice, who is going to go for that final sweep, and which one of your opponent's pokemon can stop that sweep. The worst feeling in the world is to get halfway through the match and then realize that you have no chance of winning because pokemon X on the opponent's team stops all your sweepers cold. To give an idea of the level of planning required, it is common for heavy offense teams to be losing 6-2 before going for the win, i.e. HO players throw away 2/3rds of their team and it's all part of their plan!

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Diving in: How to beat your opponent to a pulp

Now that you're all pumped up for hyper offense, let's talk about how to actually go for the win. Keep in mind that the main reason to use hyper offense is to execute your gameplan while simultaneously minimizing prediction. Here are some pointers to go about doing that:

• Minimize switches. To understand why this is a good idea, you need to understand the pros and cons of switching out a pokemon normally. The advantage is that you can switch to get a more favorable type matchup, either offensively or defensively. Well on HO teams there is no way to get a better matchup defensively since the defense on your team sucks anyways. Offensively, every pokemon that is out should be able to threaten your opponent so that's not an issue either. The cons far outweigh the pros though. For one, if you switch, that's one turn that you aren't doing any damage. Also if you switch, you are giving your opponent a free turn to do whatever they want. This is a HUGE no-no. If your opponent takes advantage of that turn to set up, you are shit out of luck.
• Sacrifice. If you have an unfavorable matchup and you're not allowed to switch, what is left for you to do? The answer is simple: just sacrifice your pokemon. Having it go out in a blaze of glory in a final 'up yours' to the opponent not only feels great but achieves two major goals. Hopefully with your coverage moves, you can cripple it enough for the next sweeper to come in and clean up. The other, more important objective is that it allows you to bring in another sweeper of your choice for free. This is HUGE. Ideally you can bring in another pokemon that is not too threatened by your opponent's pokemon in play. From there, you are almost guaranteed a turn of setup, which sometimes is all that is needed to break through your opponent's defenses.

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Teambuilding: assembling your death squad

We'll start with the teambuilding. At the very basic level, the hyper offense composition is one suicide lead, and 5 late-game sweepers.

The suicide lead: This is your dedicated lead, the one that comes out first 100% of the time. The role of this guy is to guarantee that stealth rocks get set up. This move is absolutely essential for your momentum since it turns a lot of 2HKOs into OHKOs and breaks any focus sashes which can otherwise be a nightmare for your team. The only problem is that setting up stealth rocks violates a basic tenet of hyper offense philosophy: don't give your opponent any free turns. But OK, we can be forgiven just this once for bending the rules since stealth rocks are so damn important. However this brings me to the second role of your suicide lead: destroy any momentum that your opponent may have gained from that one free turn that you set up stealth rocks. Granted it may not be much, but in such a high pressure environment every little bit counts.

Example of a suicide lead:

Azelf @ Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Taunt
- Flamethrower
- Explosion


With its high speed Azelf is almost guaranteed to get stealth rocks up. Taunt is nice to prevent other leads from getting stealth rock up, but don't sweat it. If stealth rocks do get set up by your opponent it's not the end of the world since you won't be switching enough to be heavily damaged anyways. Zen Headbutt is a reliable stab move and the last slot can either be used for coverage or Explosion. Explosion is a handy option that has a twofold purpose: heavily damage the opponent and also add to your momentum by allowing you to switch in a sweeper for free.

Suicide leads (OU):

• : High speed, can set up rocks, taunt other leads, or set up dual screens. When it's done it can explode for good measure.
• : Fake out is nice to break focus sashes. High speed and access to stealth rock, plus deadly coverage moves means it puts insane pressure on the opponent from turn 1.
• : High speed, access to edgequake combo, and stealth rock + taunt combo, everything you need in a lead.
• : Somewhat unconventional, can only set up toxic spikes as a lead but can also baton pass speed, attack, and substitutes, meaning the opponent has to focus all his effort on destroying Scolipede since a free turn can spell disaster.
• : Stealth rock, can learn edgequake combo, and has access to dangerous boosting moves such as swords dance and rock polish.
• : Growing in popular as a suicide lead since it can stack stealth rock and spikes and also has access to taunt.
• : Spores one pokemon and proceeds to stack hazards.
• : Very unconventional but has access to sticky web and stealth rock as hazards. When it's almost dead it can encore the opponent so that your next pokemon can take advantage of whatever move its locked into.
• : Insane speed and attack make it a high pressure offensive lead. Also has access to stealth rock, taunt, and swords dance.
• : Great resistances, decent speed and great coverage means that it can set up stealth rock fairly reliably while also threatening the opponent.

The sweepers: The heart of hyper offense, these are the guys that make or break the team. The main thing to think about here is offensive type synergy. A common pitfall that many people fall into here is that they think this means that they should have a variety of attacks: for example, some physical, some special, varied across different types, the idea being that 'ok if I can hit across a bunch of different spectrums then presumably I can hit everything for super effective damage and put the hurt on my opponent.' Nice try, but that's wrong. The problem with this line of thinking is that it doesn't take into account that the opponent switches around too. For example if you try to attack on both the physical and special side, then if your opponent has Chansey and Skarmory then the damage is spread out among two pokemon if he switches out appropriately. However if you attack only on the physical side, then only Skarmory is left available to take your beating.

Here's the key insight that guides the philosophy of HO teambuilding: every team only packs one or two defensive counters to each pokemon. Any more, and the team becomes so specialized that it loses its defensive power against the myriad threats that are present in the tier. So, if we're building a HO team, this leads us to a basic tenet: we need to pack the team full of sweepers with similar counters so that if the opponent has any of these counters, they will quickly be worn down. Once the opponent loses their counter, that's when the floodgates open and it's open season on the remainder of their team.

As an example of this, consider the birdspam core: and. Here Pinsir and Talonflame fire off either flying-type or coverage moves when appropriate to take huge chunks off the opponent. The main counters off the top of my head to flying types are Tyranitar, Rotom-W, and Heatran. All three take huge amounts of damage or are outright KOed by Pinsir if it carries close combat. Once these checks are either dead or severely weakened, then Talonflame can sweep freely with a priority Brave Bird.

Let's take a look at other properties needed by sweepers:

• Offensive type synergy (discussed above).
• Threatening coverage: This seems like a 'duh' thing to say but when it's time to sacrifice a pokemon you really want to threaten it with your coverage move. If you don't threaten it, then instead of killing you straight off your opponent might try to set up instead which will be the beginning of the end for you.
• No choice items: There is a bit of give and take here, but this is essentially the same idea as above - it gives away free moves to your opponent. If you are locked into a choice move, then yeah you can probably kill one pokemon, but then the opponent can send in a second pokemon that resists your choice-locked move and proceed to set up from there.
• Resistances/immunities: Once you sacrifice a pokemon, you have the golden opportunity to switch in whoever you want. At this point you're going to switch in a pokemon that resists or is immune to the opponent's pokemon in play, so that you have a free turn to set up while your opponent switches out.

Here is a checklist for roles that should be filled on a hyper offense team (thanks to Void)

• Lead (SR setter or weather starter)
• Wallbreaker #1
• Wallbreaker #2 (or weather abuser)
• Sweeper
• Utility (hazard removal, i.e. Latios, Excadrill, Starmie)
• Revenge Killer (scarfer or priority user)

In every tier, there are some awesome cores that, if played correctly, just break through defenses. People have put a lot of thought into these cores to think about how they remove each other's checks and counters. Here are a couple to check out:


Offensive cores (OU) (stolen shamelessly from Smogon)

• + : These two almost perfectly resist each other's weaknesses: Gallade has a quad fighting resist while Bisharp is immune to psyshock and resists the flying and ghost/dark moves Gallade is weak to.
• + : Wears down the opponent's few flying-type resists. Typically sacrifice one and have the other sweep.
• + + : Dugtrio traps the pokemon that Metagross and Talonflame hate, i.e. Tyranitar, Heatran, Jirachi, Diancie, Bisharp, etc. etc.
• + : These two pokemon draw in each other's counters and chunk them pretty hard, e.g. Gallade draws in Skarmory and cripples it with +2 close combat, while Diggersby draws in Lando-T and cripples it with +2 return.
• + : Raikou covers a whole bunch of threats for Keldeo, e.g. flying and electric attacks.
• +
• +

Sample teambuilding process (OU):

• I start out with a birdspam core of M-Pinsir and Talonflame. These two pokemon are threatening as hell and can sweep at a moment's notice.
• I add a suicide lead of Azelf. With this guy, stealth rock is almost guaranteed to go up before I start wrecking my opponent.
• The biggest birdspam counters that I am worried about at this point are Rotom-W, Landorus-T, Tyranitar, and Skarmory.
• SD Diggersby hits the first three of them HARD. In addition it lures in Lando-T, which switches in on the swords dance and is crippled if not outright destroyed by Return. Also resists rock if you want to play switching games (but you shouldn't).
• Ideally we want to add in a special attacker to break through physical walls, but as discussed above it's not a great idea to split your sweepers between both physical and special attackers. Keldeo provides the best of both worlds; it easily breaks through the aforementioned physical walls with Hydro Pump, and breaks through special walls with Secret Sword.
• Bisharp is added to discourage the opponent from using defog. Dark is also a great attacking type, with very few solid resistances.

All my sweepers are threatening, in the sense that they can all hit 90% of the metagame neutrally. In addition, they are all physical sweepers. If the opponent relies solely on one or two pokemon to wall physical threats then it is not too hard to bust through the walls and begin sweeping.

Importable:

Azelf @ Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Taunt
- Skill Swap
- Explosion

Pinsir (M) @ Pinsirite
Ability: Moxie
Happiness: 0
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
- Close Combat
- Frustration
- Quick Attack
- Swords Dance

Talonflame @ Choice BandAbility: Gale Wings
EVs: 80 HP / 252 Atk / 176 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- U-turn
- Tailwind

Bisharp @ Life Orb
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head

Diggersby (M) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Huge Power
Happiness: 0
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Frustration
- Quick Attack
- Earthquake

Keldeo-Resolute @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Icy Wind
- Secret Sword
- Calm Mind

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Conclusion: get out there and kick ass!

Hyper offense is a tricky style to pull off, mainly because it demands such a high level of precision to work properly. Compared to other playstyles which allow a player to "come back" after making a misplay, in the case of HO any mistake made, no matter how small, can be disastrous. On the plus side though, it's attractive to more experienced players because it rewards long-term thinking over winning prediction games (ironically, this is a feature that it shares with the full stall playstyle on the polar opposite side of the spectrum). It is also immensely rewarding to master the playstyle and helps you develop good habits since it forces you to think constantly about the endgame.

[Lostelle]

Offensive cores (OU) (stolen shamelessly from Smogon)

• M-Gallade + Bisharp
• M-Pinsir + Talonflame
• M-Metagross + Talonflame + Dugtrio
• M-Lopunny + Greninja
• M-Gallade + Diggersby

Might as well edit that out right? Considering Greninja did get banned.

Other than that, great explanation from what I've read so far, I've never been familiar on what hyper-offense actually meant.

I'll read more later!

[Jelly]

you could add memento users that get rocks to the suicide leads section. stuff like dugtrio and uxie can set up rocks (and screens in uxie's case) and then memento to get momentum on your side. other than that i have no other nitpicks. great guide guys!

[Void]

unlike most other playstyles, it can be pretty helpful to follow a standard template for hyper offense teams. a simple build like this generally works:

1. lead (SR setter, or weather starter if you're building a weather based team)
2. wallbreaker #1
3. wallbreaker #2 / weather abuser if weather team
4. sweeper
5. revenge killer (scarfer or priority user)
6. utility (normally some sort of hazard removal that can hit hard, like latios, excadrill, offensive starmie)

if you're trying to build a weather based hyper offense team, you'll notice that many pokemon can actually perform more than one of those roles, like excadrill in sand who can be a sweeper, revenge killer and utility all in one. in this case you have a bit more freedom with the remaining slots. for example, on a rain team since most rain abusers can double as a revenge killer, this gives you space to run maybe another rain abuser.

in any case, if you have already filled up all the required roles but still have a free slot or two on your team, just use it to try and patch up any weaknesses on your team. the term 'weaknesses' on hyper offense generally refers more to defensive threats rather than offensive threats btw, because with this playstyle you should be more worried about what walls you rather than having counters for things.

[slant]

thanks for the feedback!

@ Lostelle: the greninja core has been removed as you suggested

@ Void: your teambuilding checklist has been added

updated with some more information, descriptions for suicide leads and offensive cores. if there are any other suggestions let me know, i'm not really a great HO player so any pointers would be welcome and thanks for the feedback!

[Cowtao]

Bring back the song.

You can put the song in a spoiler so people won't complain. That and I just really like Accept. ;-;