The Usage of Field Effects / Modifiers / Weathers in a Reborn Team

[Krellian]

Hello guys, Krellian here! How are you?

Well, as we wait for our beloved game to be completed, i've been thinking about all the mechanics it has and how well used they are. Im not trying to suck anyone's balls but you have to admit you don't see this much even in the original games.

 

Ive been trying to make a team, a all around team, which could be used basically for all situations and i was thought of exploting one of those mechanics. Not all the team, but maybe a trio?

 

So, long story short, do you guys use them? If so, which one and why?

[Seel The Deal]

Never used it myself, but the idea of Mist(y Terrain) -> Acid Downpour -> Salazzle going ham in a Corrosive Mist field seems like a fun one. If you don't want to use a Z-move, Gastrodon gets Mist + Clear Smog and serves as a good bulky Water and Ground type (which conveniently is covered by Salazzle's typing perfectly).

 

Weather is something I've never had much success with. Rain is probably the best - Seismitoad is actually pretty damn strong for a mon with base 75 special attack, since it has great coverage with Muddy Water (later Surf/Hydro Pump), Earth Power and Sludge Wave, and it has the bulk to set its own Rain too. It's also one of two lucky weathers to actually have a decent auto-setter in Pelipper. Unfortunately though, with Mantine not getting Hurricane in gen 7, Seismitoad is your ONLY good abuser until late game (don't get me started on Ludicolo, actually the worst mon I've ever given a chance lol), and even then you only gain like, Kingdra, Scizor and Ferrothorn. Hail is probably second by default, with Sand literally just being Excadrill, and Sun missing its two most important pieces (Mega Charizard Y and a Poison STAB for Venusaur)

[wcv]

Sand isn’t just Excadrill. Early game is main problem is just that there are no sand setters before the Flygon trade. But you get Hippowdon soon after. Once you’ve got that you can use a lot of unconventional sand abusers. Heliolisk with Sand Veil, Sand Rush Stoutland, Lycanroc, and Sandslash, and Sand Force Dugtrio which is already incredibly fast. By the circus you can add Alakazam and Clefable to Pokemon to use.

 

Rain actually gets a lot of early abusers. You can grab a good setter in Finneon before the first gym, and Goldeen gets Swift Swim as an ability. You can get Swift Swim Buizel from the Magma Gang quest, and of course Lotad, which far from useless is really good. Once you’ve beaten Shellybyou can grab a Beartic for a completely unconventional rain abuser. Later Armando is another solid rain abuser (better than Kabutops because the latter’s movepool is actual garbage). If you need an electric type then either Raichu or Jolteon can work. Or even Heliolisk since it gets Rain Dish. And you can just grab a Noivern for Hurricane spam before heading to the Circus.

 

For sun, you don’t need Charizard Y. Castform’s the early setter, and you can grab a Bellsprout before Florinia for a Chlorophyll user. Plus Solar Power Charizard. Plus you can get a Deerling from the Forest Egg, and Vulpix from the Police Egg. Then grab Heliolisk (again) for another Solar Power Pokemon. After that things get worse since sun abusers are often meh even in sun, and grass is just not a great type in general, there aren’t Pokemon like Beartic or Armaldo that provide type variety.

 

Hail isn’t very good at all IMO.

[Seel The Deal]

5 hours ago, wcv said:

Sand isn’t just Excadrill. Early game is main problem is just that there are no sand setters before the Flygon trade. But you get Hippowdon soon after. Once you’ve got that you can use a lot of unconventional sand abusers. Heliolisk with Sand Veil, Sand Rush Stoutland, Lycanroc, and Sandslash, and Sand Force Dugtrio which is already incredibly fast. By the circus you can add Alakazam and Clefable to Pokemon to use.

 

Rain actually gets a lot of early abusers. You can grab a good setter in Finneon before the first gym, and Goldeen gets Swift Swim as an ability. You can get Swift Swim Buizel from the Magma Gang quest, and of course Lotad, which far from useless is really good. Once you’ve beaten Shellybyou can grab a Beartic for a completely unconventional rain abuser. Later Armando is another solid rain abuser (better than Kabutops because the latter’s movepool is actual garbage). If you need an electric type then either Raichu or Jolteon can work. Or even Heliolisk since it gets Rain Dish. And you can just grab a Noivern for Hurricane spam before heading to the Circus.

 

For sun, you don’t need Charizard Y. Castform’s the early setter, and you can grab a Bellsprout before Florinia for a Chlorophyll user. Plus Solar Power Charizard. Plus you can get a Deerling from the Forest Egg, and Vulpix from the Police Egg. Then grab Heliolisk (again) for another Solar Power Pokemon. After that things get worse since sun abusers are often meh even in sun, and grass is just not a great type in general, there aren’t Pokemon like Beartic or Armaldo that provide type variety.

 

Hail isn’t very good at all IMO.

 

Sand: I tend not to consider "random mon with Sand Veil" a "sand abuser" but fair enough if that's your style, it just feels like I could get the same result slapping brightpowder on without having to set weather. Lycanroc is already faster than everything without Sand Rush and Sandslash/Dugtrio kinda suck (outside of like right when you get them, since not many grounds are available then) due to having essentially mono-Ground coverage. Stoutland is outclassed by other Normal types by the time you have a sand setter. Alakazam and Clefable are just miscellaneous mons immune to Sand damage, you could include every single Ground, Rock and Steel type as well as Mandibuzz and Reuniclus as abusers by that definition.

 

Rain: Seaking admittedly gets Water Pulse and Waterfall much earlier than I remember, and as a very, very early game member is good, but even for an "early game" mon it has limited longevity - by Shelly its stats and lack of any actual coverage are seriously crippling. Floatzel not only has the same issue as Lycanroc where it doesn't actually care much about its weather, but also (assuming you evolve it) doesn't get a good move at all until level 46, which is after Aya - but even then its coverage is weak and it's frail, so it has trouble actually picking up KOs and tends to get walloped by field-boosted attacks in return. Armaldo and Beartic are both a tad slow even in Rain and the latter gets approximately zero good moves without breeding (Icicle Crash isn't even a good STAB, it misses half the time and is barely stronger than Ice Punch). The electrics all function exactly the same in and out of rain (I suppose Jolteon gets an accuracy boost, which is... nice?) and Noivern actually gets worse thanks to Flamethrower being weakened. Heliolisk is too frail to make consistent use of Rain Dish.

 

Ludicolo: the reason Seismitoad gets away with its low special attack is because it hits literally everything super-effectively on top of having an excellent defensive typing and bulk that gives it the turns to set its own rain, sometimes multiple times in one battle, as well as trade hits when it can't OHKO. Ludicolo has decent neutral but meh super-effective coverage alongside an average 90 special attack and thus never hits as hard as you need it to, and while its bulk is good enough it has far more weaknesses than Seismitoad. It's also pretty awful before evolving. As a setter it's outclassed entirely by Lumineon who gets U-turn naturally, and Seismitoad for reasons already mentioned, aaaand Gastrodon as well. I've put this thing on multiple teams, both full rain and more standard teams as an abuser of its own rain, and it's never once put in work.

 

Sun: my problem with Sun is that, unlike every other weather, all the setters are pretty terrible on their own. Castform is fine enough early on but once you start needing something better on your team, your options are... Ninetales and Torkoal. Ninetales is a mediocre pure-Fire type with little support capability outside of Will-O-Wisp and Torkoal tends to accomplish little other than setting Stealth Rock (which you don't even need with Mega Houndoom and Charizard both OHKOing everything and all your Chlorophyll users having Growth to also OHKO everything), at least in my experience. The setters not accomplishing anything means you can't put yourself in a good position to get your abusers in, which kills the weather entirely IMO. The abusers are great (aside from Venusaur's unfortunate STAB issues) but they aren't backed up by the mon enabling the entire team.

(also the police egg is 1/18 for Vulpix, I'm acting as if its earliest appearance is at Agate because you can't just say "hmm today I will get vulpix with 2 badges" every time you want to play sun)

 

idk, maybe other people have better experiences with the weathers, but while they're fun to use and generally solid enough, I never find they're as good as running a solidly built "standard" squad with good type synergies.

 

(sorry if I sound argumentative or anything idk I just like pokemon and discussing pokemon and shit yknow)

[wcv]

8 hours ago, Seel The Deal said:

Stoutland is outclassed by other Normal types by the time you have a sand setter.

It really isn't under sand. An attack stat of 110 is extremely high for a normal type, matching a Pokemon like Snorlax, having decent defenses, and under Sand being almost as fast as Kingdra under rain. Add on the elemental fangs by move relearner, both play rough and crunch by level up, and you end up with a Pokemon who's main weakness in the mid-game is just that its best abusable STAB move is retaliate, which is perfectly servicable until late-game.

 

8 hours ago, Seel The Deal said:

Armaldo and Beartic are both a tad slow even in Rain and the latter gets approximately zero good moves without breeding

Armaldo, with a base speed of 45, will have a final speed faster than Timid Gengar under rain assuming a decent speed IV and full EV training. Beartic meanwhile gets Icicle Crash, I know you dismissed it but its literally Ice-type rock slide. 30% chance to flinch is a solid one. It also gets Superpower to hit steel types, and Aqua Jet for pseudo-stab. Usually my fourth move is Shadow Claw or breeding play rough onto it.

 

8 hours ago, Seel The Deal said:

(also the police egg is 1/18 for Vulpix, I'm acting as if its earliest appearance is at Agate because you can't just say "hmm today I will get vulpix with 2 badges" every time you want to play sun)

While true theoretically, I can guarantee what Pokemon I get so...

[Seel The Deal]

4 hours ago, wcv said:

It really isn't under sand. An attack stat of 110 is extremely high for a normal type, matching a Pokemon like Snorlax, having decent defenses, and under Sand being almost as fast as Kingdra under rain. Add on the elemental fangs by move relearner, both play rough and crunch by level up, and you end up with a Pokemon who's main weakness in the mid-game is just that its best abusable STAB move is retaliate, which is perfectly servicable until late-game.

 

Hippowdon, if I remember correctly, is in... Tanzan Mountain, where you're about to fight the Steelix? At that point you're about to get access to Tauros and Swellow who give Stoutland extremely stiff and direct competition as fast, physical attacking normal types, as well as Miltank, Bewear and Bouffalant. You're not far off from Silvally either, who even without a memory is reasonably effective with Crunch, a reliable and powerful STAB in Multi-Attack, and the 2nd strongest Explosion in the game making it a great boss buster. I'll admit Stoutland is a great revenge killer but as an attacker in general, it's either wearing itself down with Take Down or hitting nowhere near as hard as its competition thanks to a base 70 STAB. I'd also rather not have my revenge killer be reliant on weather, only for sand to run out the turn my opponent's ace gets a KO.