SpeedShuffling: A Discussion of Swift Destruction (+1 example set!)

[Incarnation]

I made pretty much the same team you made, bar two pokémon:
1.Aerodactyl with Whirlwind/Roar/Sleep Talk/--- instead of Drapion: if you're able to catch up Sleep move, you can phase 100% of the time for a few turns. If Aerodactyl dies in the process, it doesn't even matter.

2.A scarfed Smeargle with Whirlwind/Roar/Destiny Bond/Trick instead of Blastoise. The frailness of this pokémon makes it ideal to finish off the final pokémon with Destiny Bond.

I also filled up Persian's and Purugly's moveset up with Sleep Talk, Switcheroo (for Persian) and Protect (for Purugly). Though these moves probably won't do anything usefull, they can't be selected through Assist, so why waste a possibly usefull moveslot.

The only EVs that really matter are those of Skarmory, the other pokémon all need to go max speed/hp. I'm not sure if you're better off maxing speed or buffering up defense in that case.

 

[Kuga]

That Smeargle is a great idea, and can certainly be swapped with Blastoise without loosing team synergy.

I considered Switcheroo and Protect literally a minute before reading your post. But I realized that Sleep Talk can still select them, unlike Assist. So you loose your 100% Roar chance when you bait the enemy into sleeping Persian or Purugly. This allows both to SleepShuffle too.

Also, Swampert, Drapion, and Blastoise do not require any speed because of their negative priority attacks. Though Drapion's Toxic Spikes is debatable. But I prefer bulk personally. Scizor, Luke, and other strong priority are the bane of this type of team. Drapion does better against them than Aerodactyl does.

 

[Incarnation]

That Smeargle is a great idea, and can certainly be swapped with Blastoise without loosing team synergy.

I considered Switcheroo and Protect literally a minute before reading your post. But I realized that Sleep Talk can still select them, unlike Assist. So you loose your 100% Roar chance when you bait the enemy into sleeping Persian or Purugly. This allows both to SleepShuffle too.

Well, you can only select Sleep Talk once when scarfed any way, so maybe Sleep Talk could be replaced instead. Switcheroo is actually a very good option for Persian


I've just tried this out on shoddy, but it turns out Assist sometimes simply fails. Probably because it selects an unselectable move, but this is a glitch in shoddy I believe? Or is this supposed to happen?

 

[husk]

I used to see a lot of this stuff in adv ou and adv ubers...you see it often in dp too with rest/talk/wf/roar gyara on stall teams (using it to "speed shuffle" against other stall teams). The strategy is not really as epic as the intial post makes it out to be...though certainly it is underplayed. I think that is for a good reason though as far as DP goes.

If assist didn't fail occasionally that assist team would be a rather interesting idea.

 

[Kuga]

Assist does not work properly on Shoddy, unfortunately. I forgot why you can only select sleep talk once when using a choice scarf. Refresh me?

I do understand that Switcheroo is a viable move, especially since it can muck up the "lone curselax" or whichever last stat-upper pokemon the foe might have. I would use it if Sleep Talk doesn't work like I thought it did.


Edit: Wow, I just had an idea. Can Smeargle Sketch Assist? If so, you could run Assist/Roar/Whirlwind/Destiny Bond and use it as a third Assist pokemon. If you used Skarm/Persian/Purugly/Smeargle/Drapion/Swampert, you would have a 72.72% chance to phaze with Persian and Purugly, and a 70% chance with Smeargle.

Edit 2: Looking over the OU list, I'm having second thoughts about the Toxic Spike trade off. If you take them out of the equation, you would have an 80% Phaze rate with the mains and 77.7% with Smeargle. Statistically speaking, this is a massive improvement. Assist vs. Trick is a "do you feel that you can handle the last pokemon" issue. I'm not sure if Assist Smeargle is worth the risk either. I still think that Drapion is more suitable than Aerodactyl if only for the priority neutrality and bulk.

Edit 3: Drapion is required over Aerodactyl because toxic spikes will screw up this strategy. Enemy Roserade leads will sleep powder first turn and toxic spike the next, dooming the assist pokemon. Assist Smeargle isn't worth it, either. LeadApe can also be a problem, but Swampert can help, as most leads don't carry grass knot.

 

[Dogzilla]

Just tried it, almost beat my friend, failed elsewise. A dedicated team for this doesnt work well.

 

[M BLADE]

Too bad the entire purpose is beaten by Cradily/Octilerry...
Not that everyone uses them, but Cradily can show up sometimes.

To overcome the problem, you will probably need Toxic Spikes.

 

[Darkmalice]

Mist Ball is a special Psychic attack that, upon hit, has a 50% (!!!) chance of lowering their special defense. If they get that special defense drop they're REALLY not staying in.

Mist Ball lowers Special Attack. If you didn't know that, you have obviously not tested that Latias set. (And I would rather use Aerodactyl, as Lee mentioned, as it can utilize Roar and Whirlwind).

Perhaps shuffling-teams could have Reflect to soften the blow from priority attackers, seeing as some of the most commonly used OU Pokemon (Scizor, Metagross Lucario) carry priority attacks. As well, shuffling is hindered against Pokemon who outspeed the shuffler. With STalk shuffling, that's any Choice Scarfer. Against Assist Persian, the list is narrowed to Scarf Azelf and Alakazam (no other faster Scarf set is seen). Shuffling teams also struggle against Pokemon with an immunity to Spikes and Toxic Spikes aka those with a Flying-type or Leviate and without a SR weakness like Gengar and Flygon.

 

[musiquev24]

As many others have stated, its a cool idea but I think it would be something that would be difficult to incorporate into a team that wasn't designed around it. It could maybe fit on a stall team, but the question is, which pokemon. The main problem I see is priority moves, and given how common those are, it just seems gimmicky.

 

[Incarnation]

I forgot why you can only select sleep talk once when using a choice scarf. Refresh me?

I can't find the article that explained this, but I believe that, when a Choiced pokémon uses Sleep Talk, it gets locked in the move that Sleep Talk selected, not Sleep Talk itself. Therefore, you cannot select Sleep Talk the next turn.

Wow, I just had an idea. Can Smeargle Sketch Assist? If so, you could run Assist/Roar/Whirlwind/Destiny Bond and use it as a third Assist pokemon.

Yeah, you may be right! A third Assist pokémon could work as a great backup, and it gives you more turns to work with when sandstorm or hail is up (which is the biggest flaw in this strategy so far, if you ask me).

Drapion is required over Aerodactyl because toxic spikes will screw up this strategy.

Good point, a poison pokémon is pretty much required. With the 4 turns of setting up entry hazard we have ourselves, we can expect our opponent to setup entry hazard himself.

Too bad the entire purpose is beaten by Cradily/Octilerry...
Not that everyone uses them, but Cradily can show up sometimes.

To overcome the problem, you will probably need Toxic Spikes.

These are quite rare, and even though I agree with you that they will pretty much destroy this strategy completely (bar the counter and destiny bond pokémon), adding TSpikes would decrease the chance of selecting a phazing move.

Perhaps shuffling-teams could have Reflect to soften the blow from priority attackers, seeing as some of the most commonly used OU Pokemon (Scizor, Metagross Lucario) carry priority attacks.

I ran some calcs on this:
Max Atk CB Scizor's Bullet Punch vs. Max HP/6 Def Persian with Reflect up: 36.53% - 43.11%
Max Atk CB Scizor's Bullet Punch vs. Max HP/6 Def Smeargle with Reflect up: 57.01% - 66.88%
Max Atk CB Scizor's Bullet Punch vs. Max HP/6 Def Purugly with Reflect up: 33.53% - 39.60%
Max Atk CB Metagross's Bullet Punch vs. Max HP/6 Def Persian with Reflect up: 25.15% - 29.64%
Neutral 252 Atk Life Orb Lucario's Extremespeed vs. Max HP/6 Def Persian with Reflect up: 23.05% - 26.95%

So even though Reflect would lower the chance of phazing, with Reflect up Persian and Purugly would only be 3HKOd by Scizor's Bullet Punch and 4HKOd by Metagross and Lucario. That's not bad at all, really.

 

[Objection]

These are quite rare, and even though I agree with you that they will pretty much destroy this strategy completely (bar the counter and destiny bond pokémon), adding TSpikes would decrease the chance of selecting a phazing move.

You really need to consider what the absolute minimum chance of selecting a phazing move has to be before arguing that point. Maybe the small decrease in probability of selecting a phazing move is outweighed by the ability to essentially Toxic stall the opponent. On the other hand, Toxic Spikes won't solve the problem with last pokemon, Cradily and Octillery, because there is a possibility of them carrying Rest.

Was Perish Song ever brought up as an option?

 

[Kuga]

The primary reason I came to the conclusion that Toxic Spikes were not worth the 7.3% drop is that only 7/8 of the top 30 OU pokemon are effectively hindered by toxic spikes. (Machamp depends if its using a guts set)

Reflect is also a decent idea, but I can see a few problems. First, there isn't any pokemon on the current setup (Skarm/Persian/Purugly/Drapion/Swampert/Smeargle) besides Smeargle who can even learn reflect. And Smeargle has better uses for that move slot with Assist or even Trick. Second, even if you have a reflect in the move pool, it has a 9% chance of coming up. This isn't frequent enough to be reliable. On the contrary, it's another chance at not phazing the enemy when it might be crucial (As the chance goes down to 72.7%). 80% seems to be nice and clean, but the real question is what the ideal number is.

 

[Incarnation]

Yeah, the choice between using a specific move and the lower "accuracy" the Assistshuffler gets by choosing that move is what makes this team so hard to make (but also more fun, imo).

I don't think TSpikes is worth decreasing the chance of phazing. It would only help against the rare Cradily/Octillery and maybe the last pokémon, but one grounded poison type on the opposing team and it's gone, plus nothing stays in long enough to really notice toxic damage.

Perish Song has been mentioned and does seem like a nice idea, if it wasn't such a rare move. There are only two pokémon that learn both Perish Song and a phazing move, Altaria and Lapras, but neither of the two have anything viable next to those moves.

For Reflect, I would need to find a pokémon that knows Reflect, at least one phasing move and Counter. I was thinking about replacing Swampert and Blastoise anyway, because they don't work well as the Counter/Mirror Coat pokémon. They both resist Bullet Punch and won't OHKO with Counter that way.
I'd have to look if such a pokémon exists, but that takes some time. Counter, Roar and Reflect aren't really rare moves, so I have a massive list of possible candidates..
Isn't there some kind of program for this kind of stuff? Netbattle had something like this, but is there a 4th gen version?

 

[Game Freak201]

I think that a Scarfed Smeargle with a + Speed Nature would make the best Perish Song user for an Assist Shuffling team since it's the second fastest pokemon that learns both a PHazing move and Perish Song and it's much more versatile than either Lapras or Alteria. In addition, Smeargle's frailty can also allow it to have Destiny Bond in its moveset as well.

Incarnation, this link might help you, and no pokemon learn Counter, Roar, and Reflect at the same time.
http://pokemon.marriland.com/diamond_pearl/pokedex/search

Edit: Kuga proved me wrong.

 

[Kuga]

That's not true. A third gen Granbull can have Reflect via egg move, learn Roar at level 28, and be taught Counter via Emerald/LG/FR tutor. This is the only example I've found, though.

 

[Incarnation]

Seeing as Destiny Bond isn't selectable through Assist, I think it is superior to Perish Song on that set. The other 3 moves should be Whirlwind, Roar and Assist, and I don't think we should change anything about that.
Thanks for the link, it will definately come in handy!

That's not true. A third gen Granbull can have Reflect via egg move, learn Roar at level 28, and be taught Counter via Emerald/LG/FR tutor. This is the only example I've found, though

Wow, nice research. Did you do that by yourself or did you use a program?! o_O

 

[Mrobinson587]

Oooo I just found this by chance and it should definitely be considered for anyone testing this strategy

Yanmega@Speed Boost
Whirlwind
Rest
Sleep Talk
Uproar/SolarBeam

Max HP I think... too lazy to check and see if its' a SR number. Careful nature dumping more into special defense for more overall bulk.

 

[Mekkah]

I was gonna get ready and have some fun with this Assist on the ladder when my Choice Scarf Persian decided to fail on using it the second time in a row. I guess it has the same problem as Choiced Sleep Talk. I'm not sure if it's correct in-game behavior, but it sure as hell makes it unusable on Shoddy.

 

[Snorlaxe]

Light: I found that Persian doesnt work very well, but the RestTalking variants are awesome over Wi-Fi.

 

[Objection]

Perish Song has been mentioned and does seem like a nice idea, if it wasn't such a rare move. There are only two pokémon that learn both Perish Song and a phazing move, Altaria and Lapras, but neither of the two have anything viable next to those moves.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'viable' here.

 

[Erodent]

To clear something up: Assist doesn't work on Shoddy. Here's a video for y'all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do7TeK__Zro&feature=channel_page
Assist Team in Action

I'm working on an Assist Team at the moment, and I have a little idea: perhaps put Rapid Spin on the team somewhere, and have a Sash CounterCoat Smeargle or Swampert or something to finish off the last Pokemon.

 

[Incarnation]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'viable' here.

With viable, I mean moves that could be usefull for this team like Counter or Destiny Bond.

I'm working on an Assist Team at the moment, and I have a little idea: perhaps put Rapid Spin on the team somewhere, and have a Sash CounterCoat Smeargle or Swampert or something to finish off the last Pokemon.

I thought of using a Swampert holding a Grass-reducing berry. There isn't much that can OHKO a fully defensive Swampert without a super effective move, and it doesn't decrease the chance of Assist selecting a phazing move.

And yes, Assist sadly isn't implemented properly shoddy. Which is a real pain in the nose for me, since I only play competitive through shoddy..

 

[Objection]

With viable, I mean moves that could be usefull for this team like Counter or Destiny Bond.

What about Heal Bell to cure any status the opponent might inflict upon your Assist user? I know that both Altaria and Lapras get the move.

 

[Game Freak201]

Since Heal Bell is selectable through Assist, it isn't viable for an Assist Shuffling team since it decreases the chance of using a PHazing move. The reason why moves such as Mirror Coat, Counter, and Destiny Bond are viable is that they aren't selectable through Assist. Perish Song is viable since it can deal with the last pokemon in your opponent's team, even though it's selectable through Assist.

 

[Incarnation]

I also don't think status is a big worry. If the opponent gets the chance to attack, he'll probably won't bother with status and just KO me immediatly. TSpikes is taken care of by Drapion.