BH Balanced Hackmons

Lcass4919

The Xatu Warrior
I don't understand your vocabulary but I kind of understand what your getting at.
basically, if you u-turn after your opponent u-turns due to you being slower, you can send in a pokemon that better handles the pokemon your opponent sends out.

basically this:
opponents giratina used u-turn since its faster
opponent sends in mewtwo
your zygarde then uses u-turn since it was slower,
you can then send in your...idk... beedrill or whatever to get the upper hand matchup, thus, giving you *"momentum"

*education time: ignore if you want. its not exactly important information.(momentum:the impetus[force that makes something happen or happen more quickly] gained by a moving object. or, for pokemon terms, who has the upper hand with matchup. its a weird term to use, but we use it because once you have an advantage, it snowballs until you lose the advantage, hence "momentum" is used.)

if you were faster, this scenario would be used AGAINST you, which is considered losing momentum. just to clear up any misunderstanding anyone might have. this is a really common practice on the higher up ladder, so its always good to know and understand these mechanics. i tend to assume people know terms like momentum and pivot. and im not the best at explaining things. my bad.
 
Unrelated, but can I say Misty Surge is a really underrated ability? I mean, it gives your team status protection, people (including myself and I'm running it) derp up and forget it does things since its so rare, it reduces damage from Dragon-type (hello near omnipresent Core Enforcer), and, maybe most importantly, it jacks with opposing Psychic/Electric Surge Pokemon/teams. ...and I suppose Grassy, but who runs that? Sure, it grants these benefits to your opponent, but its not hard to team build around it so they get little to no benefit from it, whereas they don't get to do such a thing to you.

Current set I'm running with it, dunno if I'll submit to creative sets or not since it probably doesn't fit on most teams, but gives you an idea of what you can build with the ability.

Giratina @ Terrain Extender
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Careful Nature
IVs: 0 SpA
- Recover
- Defog
- Spectral Thief
- Baton Pass

Defog can be swapped if you have a Defogger elsewhere and you can use your Recover move of choice. Max speed IVs/EVs lets it steal a Ytwo's and Deo-A's Shell Smash and then outspeed and KO with a follow-up Spectral Thief, min speed they still outspeed even at +2. Though min speed is viable if the pivoting is more desirable, which is what I did vs Silver Lucario in the Ultimate League.

This set can switch into predicted status moves with impunity, even versus Mold Breaker. Misty Surge halves Core Enforcer damage, which means Giratina shrugs them off like a champ, though Rayquaza and Kyurem-W still hurt. Giratina also doesn't need to worry about out-slowing Core Enforcer to save its ability since its a fire and forget, though be mindful that your teammates might if Baton Passing. Its also handy if you need to steal a Sceptile's Shell Smash, as its Clanging Scales or Draco Meteor won't hurt so badly anymore.
 
Unrelated, but can I say Misty Surge is a really underrated ability? I mean, it gives your team status protection, people (including myself and I'm running it) derp up and forget it does things since its so rare, it reduces damage from Dragon-type (hello near omnipresent Core Enforcer), and, maybe most importantly, it jacks with opposing Psychic/Electric Surge Pokemon/teams. ...and I suppose Grassy, but who runs that? Sure, it grants these benefits to your opponent, but its not hard to team build around it so they get little to no benefit from it, whereas they don't get to do such a thing to you.

Current set I'm running with it, dunno if I'll submit to creative sets or not since it probably doesn't fit on most teams, but gives you an idea of what you can build with the ability.

Giratina @ Terrain Extender
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Careful Nature
IVs: 0 SpA
- Recover
- Defog
- Spectral Thief
- Baton Pass

Defog can be swapped if you have a Defogger elsewhere and you can use your Recover move of choice. Max speed IVs/EVs lets it steal a Ytwo's and Deo-A's Shell Smash and then outspeed and KO with a follow-up Spectral Thief, min speed they still outspeed even at +2. Though min speed is viable if the pivoting is more desirable, which is what I did vs Silver Lucario in the Ultimate League.

This set can switch into predicted status moves with impunity, even versus Mold Breaker. Misty Surge halves Core Enforcer damage, which means Giratina shrugs them off like a champ, though Rayquaza and Kyurem-W still hurt. Giratina also doesn't need to worry about out-slowing Core Enforcer to save its ability since its a fire and forget, though be mindful that your teammates might if Baton Passing. Its also handy if you need to steal a Sceptile's Shell Smash, as its Clanging Scales or Draco Meteor won't hurt so badly anymore.
I know this seems odd on a set that basically nerfs dragons, but have you considered running core enforcer (hell you could use gastro acid) since having a spore/facade immune mon that can't do anything to PH regigigas seems like a shame. (But then again if all 5 other members of your team beat it there's no worries.)
 

Lcass4919

The Xatu Warrior
I know this seems odd on a set that basically nerfs dragons, but have you considered running core enforcer (hell you could use gastro acid) since having a spore/facade immune mon that can't do anything to PH regigigas seems like a shame. (But then again if all 5 other members of your team beat it there's no worries.)
it sounds good on paper...but when you think about it, giratina's presence on your team would nullify 99% of chances for PH mons to actually utilize their status, so if you played giratina properly most PH mons wouldnt get a chance to set it up anyways.

as for terrain support, i think all of them are really underappriciated and underutilized. grassy terrain gives you extra recovery+increased grass damage (eq reduct doesnt really matter much.) electric terrain provides sleep immunity and electricity bonuses, and misty terrain provides you with status immunity,PH blockers, and weakens dragon moves. which speaking of, i think misty surge is worth noting in creative sets, as its utlity of blocking poison heal for 8 turns(or 10? idr) is REALLY coveted, ESPECIALLY for imposter. turning your entire team into a PH counter...for 8 turns, until you have to activate it again.
 
I know this seems odd on a set that basically nerfs dragons, but have you considered running core enforcer (hell you could use gastro acid) since having a spore/facade immune mon that can't do anything to PH regigigas seems like a shame. (But then again if all 5 other members of your team beat it there's no worries.)
I have a different check to most PH sets on the team that utilizes it. Wouldn't be a bad idea for teams that lack said check though.


as its utlity of blocking poison heal for 8 turns(or 10? idr) is REALLY coveted, ESPECIALLY for imposter. turning your entire team into a PH counter...for 8 turns, until you have to activate it again.
8 turns with extender, 5 without. Though, last I checked last gen, Misty Terrain doesn't stop status orbs from activating. Assuming memory is working right, anyway. Has that changed?
 

SaturnZelda

formerly TylerWithNumbers
I have a different check to most PH sets on the team that utilizes it. Wouldn't be a bad idea for teams that lack said check though.




8 turns with extender, 5 without. Though, last I checked last gen, Misty Terrain doesn't stop status orbs from activating. Assuming memory is working right, anyway. Has that changed?
I just went on Showdown to test, and Misty Terrain does indeed block Toxic Orb from activating (unless, of course, it's a Pokémon like Yveltal that's Flying).
 
So, I've been wanting to talk about the suspect testing methods for a little bit now and here seems like the best place since I don't want to derail the suspect discussion. I think the current system is fairly flawed in the way it operates right now. The first primary issue I'm seeing is, the better you perform, the less exposure you have to the test. If I understand correctly, the testing process is intended for people to get out, play games, get exposed to the thing being suspected, try it out themselves, experiment with it, and therefore able to make an intelligent vote. The problem is, this isn't how it goes in practice. The best way to get reqs is to ignore the suspect, grab your best laddering team(s), and plow through games. Why is this?

At present, the better you do, the shorter you need to spend. Additionally, you need a very high win rate in order to meet reqs (and such a thing is only consistently possible because the community is small enough that match-ups of even skill are irritatingly rare, but that's beyond our control). This means that winning is more important than testing. Paradoxially, better performance means fewer opportunities to be exposed to the test, so someone who has a few losses under their belt and came out 39/3 is actually more likely to do proper suspect testing than Mr. 19/0. There's little incentive to actually test things because using an unfamiliar team means you're more likely to lose, which in turn means you're less likely to meet suspect requirements.

Then there's the problem that you don't even need to play anyone good. The likelihood of avoiding all skilled players entirely is fairly low, particularly at the start of the testing period, but the more you win, the less likely you'll meet them. You can theoretically farm low skilled players and meet requirements, which teaches the testing player nothing about the suspect.

So if we pause here, I have an imperfect solution if we only consider these points. Rather than making the suspect process based on a ladder metric, make it based on a number of games played. Perhaps with a decent ranking requirement of some form to keep people who don't know what they're doing from making requirements. Something like, minimum 50 games with a 60% win rate seems fair. (Just an example, these numbers can be trivially changed.) It doesn't solve all the problems (someone can still farm low elo players by playing at off-times), but its a good start and it gives room to experiment with the suspect at hand and, even for those wanting to use the suspect to wave their e-peen instead of test by ignoring the suspect and spamming their best team, they're at least twice as likely, if not more, to encounter the thing being tested. Yeah, needing to play many more games would stink but I think it'd be healthier for the testing process and it'd also make getting a loss or two less stressful.


However, this doesn't solve the other major issue: people who don't know what they're talking about can vote and influence the direction of the metagame. Now, I cannot prove that these voters had any influence on any suspect decisions. However, I cannot prove that they didn't either. Until I can read minds across the internet, I can only really speculate how many votes were based on personal reasons or poor logic rather than objective arguments. Ideally, people without good, sound reasoning on the suspect should have no ability to vote. But how do we keep them from doing so?

Simple: instead of a test, there's a suspect debate. Similar to what we have now in the suspect discussion, except one topic is chosen for specific focus. Some sort of impartial neutral party listens to the arguments from both sides and comes to a decision. People making bad arguments would easily be ignored by the decision makers and it'd all come down to which side had the more sound reasoning. It could also potentially speed up the suspect process as we won't need to wait until its our turn to do a ladder test and could even have multiple debates at the same time.

...however, as amazing as this sounds on paper, I'll be first to point out its fraught with its own problems. First, gameplay is eliminated from it as is the feeling of agency by getting a direct vote. Gameplay could be integrated by having some sort of requirement based on it to even participate, but there's not much we can do about the latter. However, the real big elephant in the room here would be, who is the party making the decision? How do we pick some who are as unbiased as possible and able to pick out solid arguments while understanding Pokemon well enough to do so? I mean, as much as I try to be objective and unbiased, I'd hesitate to nominate myself for such a position as I still get urges like "holy crap that Aftermath Caterpie wrecked my team hard, it needs to be banned!"

A debate is the only way I can think of to reliably eliminate the poor logic votes from the suspect process. It has some hefty problems, so I wouldn't be offended if that idea was shot down into oblivion within the hour.


So, to sum up: one suggestion to deal with the suspect testing becoming more of an e-peen contest is to make it less about winning and more about getting games in and getting exposed to the subject of the test. And one suggestion to deal with poor reasoning getting votes is to make the suspect process a formal debate. Even if these are both horrible ideas, hopefully someone else who can come up with better is now aware of the problems.
 
So, I've been wanting to talk about the suspect testing methods for a little bit now and here seems like the best place since I don't want to derail the suspect discussion. I think the current system is fairly flawed in the way it operates right now. The first primary issue I'm seeing is, the better you perform, the less exposure you have to the test. If I understand correctly, the testing process is intended for people to get out, play games, get exposed to the thing being suspected, try it out themselves, experiment with it, and therefore able to make an intelligent vote. The problem is, this isn't how it goes in practice. The best way to get reqs is to ignore the suspect, grab your best laddering team(s), and plow through games. Why is this?

At present, the better you do, the shorter you need to spend. Additionally, you need a very high win rate in order to meet reqs (and such a thing is only consistently possible because the community is small enough that match-ups of even skill are irritatingly rare, but that's beyond our control). This means that winning is more important than testing. Paradoxially, better performance means fewer opportunities to be exposed to the test, so someone who has a few losses under their belt and came out 39/3 is actually more likely to do proper suspect testing than Mr. 19/0. There's little incentive to actually test things because using an unfamiliar team means you're more likely to lose, which in turn means you're less likely to meet suspect requirements.

Then there's the problem that you don't even need to play anyone good. The likelihood of avoiding all skilled players entirely is fairly low, particularly at the start of the testing period, but the more you win, the less likely you'll meet them. You can theoretically farm low skilled players and meet requirements, which teaches the testing player nothing about the suspect.

So if we pause here, I have an imperfect solution if we only consider these points. Rather than making the suspect process based on a ladder metric, make it based on a number of games played. Perhaps with a decent ranking requirement of some form to keep people who don't know what they're doing from making requirements. Something like, minimum 50 games with a 60% win rate seems fair. (Just an example, these numbers can be trivially changed.) It doesn't solve all the problems (someone can still farm low elo players by playing at off-times), but its a good start and it gives room to experiment with the suspect at hand and, even for those wanting to use the suspect to wave their e-peen instead of test by ignoring the suspect and spamming their best team, they're at least twice as likely, if not more, to encounter the thing being tested. Yeah, needing to play many more games would stink but I think it'd be healthier for the testing process and it'd also make getting a loss or two less stressful.


However, this doesn't solve the other major issue: people who don't know what they're talking about can vote and influence the direction of the metagame. Now, I cannot prove that these voters had any influence on any suspect decisions. However, I cannot prove that they didn't either. Until I can read minds across the internet, I can only really speculate how many votes were based on personal reasons or poor logic rather than objective arguments. Ideally, people without good, sound reasoning on the suspect should have no ability to vote. But how do we keep them from doing so?

Simple: instead of a test, there's a suspect debate. Similar to what we have now in the suspect discussion, except one topic is chosen for specific focus. Some sort of impartial neutral party listens to the arguments from both sides and comes to a decision. People making bad arguments would easily be ignored by the decision makers and it'd all come down to which side had the more sound reasoning. It could also potentially speed up the suspect process as we won't need to wait until its our turn to do a ladder test and could even have multiple debates at the same time.

...however, as amazing as this sounds on paper, I'll be first to point out its fraught with its own problems. First, gameplay is eliminated from it as is the feeling of agency by getting a direct vote. Gameplay could be integrated by having some sort of requirement based on it to even participate, but there's not much we can do about the latter. However, the real big elephant in the room here would be, who is the party making the decision? How do we pick some who are as unbiased as possible and able to pick out solid arguments while understanding Pokemon well enough to do so? I mean, as much as I try to be objective and unbiased, I'd hesitate to nominate myself for such a position as I still get urges like "holy crap that Aftermath Caterpie wrecked my team hard, it needs to be banned!"

A debate is the only way I can think of to reliably eliminate the poor logic votes from the suspect process. It has some hefty problems, so I wouldn't be offended if that idea was shot down into oblivion within the hour.


So, to sum up: one suggestion to deal with the suspect testing becoming more of an e-peen contest is to make it less about winning and more about getting games in and getting exposed to the subject of the test. And one suggestion to deal with poor reasoning getting votes is to make the suspect process a formal debate. Even if these are both horrible ideas, hopefully someone else who can come up with better is now aware of the problems.
Interesting idea, but you're already wholly biased. Arguments are not only logical, some are based on emotion and are no less valid for being made so. Finding a perfect "neutral" arbiter that both understands balanced hackmons (thereby being able to make an informed decision on the metagame) and at the same time having absolutely no strong opinion on which way the metagame should go is essentially impossible. The suspect test method is not perfect granted, but neither is democracy. The essential "perfectness" of the system does not mean it is not effective. Ensuring everyone who actually plays the metagame has an informed choice in the matter with a vote and that their voice is not drowned out by the 'reason of superior logic' is essential for the development of the metagame. What you are proposing is a system where those whose voices are not considered consonant with the ongoing logic of the higher-ups is drowned out for being a "bad argument", according to the standards of those who are advancing a certain ideology. In short: my take is that this is not fallible - not credible. You essentially want to turn a democratic process that ensures everyone's views are taken into account - into a giant jerk-fest of one view as the more unpopular view (no matter how based in logic or emotional) will be deemed a "bad argument". For reference, I refer to the recent gengarite suspect. Many good (in my opinion) no-ban posts were made - however those advancing the more majority view of "ban" were very quick to shoot it down for having "no-basis" - yet they themselves were already biased on one view when making this decision and didn't take in the merits the argument itself.

To conclude: this is unsustainable and the current system works - albeit slow, there is no need to change it.
 
Don't suspect tours help to solve both of these problems? By adding the option of a suspect tour we can increase the required COIL needed and thus increase the credibility of ladder scores, and suspect tours will almost certainly bring out the suspected issue since people who sign up for that will want to be winning and playing with the broken stuff. If you run a suspect tour, and have like, the top 20or 25% of players as qualified to vote (in a 32 man tour it would be 8 players, for instance), then that gives you 8 voices of people who probably had to try to play against the broken component or used it themselves. The issue of the suspect tour is that there might not be enough skilled players who would join such a tour so most people would probably still use COIL to get reqs to vote instead.
 

cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
is a Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnus
sorry for the off topic post but i'm taking a break from bh (yes i will be back) (no that's not the main point of this post) so i want to make this post right now.

i want to talk about bulky offense in bh.

first off i need to make clear what bulky offense actually is, using this quote from the oras ou teambuilding guide (with bh mons substituting ou ones).

Bulky offense is the polar opposite to HO, specifically in the way it plays. It does not signify that all the Pokémon are literally slow, bulky attackers like Primal Groudon. Rather, it implies that Pokémon are switched out rather than sacked, as the team packs checks to the metagame that can sponge a resisted hit, and counter in return. A great example of a BO Pokémon (that would still be used in other playstyles) is Mega Rayquaza. It is moderately fast and hits hard, but most importantly, it has some great resistances, and can come in on the likes of Primal Groudon, and on random resisted moves in general. BO teams should be built with both offensive and defensive synergy in mind, so that the Pokémon cover and pressure the opponent’s Pokémon, but also so that they could defensively react to the opponent’s Pokémon. Start with the objective (being the sweeper), and expand offensively and defensively from that point.
now idk about you guys but i haven't actually seen that many bulky offense teams on the ladder. like it seems like every team is either hyper offense with shell smash and contrary galore, or those pivot balance teams that i build with the level 98 audinos.

the most obvious example of a bulky offense team i've seen on the ladder is those six pdon teams. (kind of ironic because of the bulky offense description but i think this is it) pdon is strong for sure, but it's not fast, and it crumbles to attacks like specs ray's boomburst. because of this, the player is forced to run a desolate land pdon and maybe a soundproof one too. keep in mind that desolate land and soundproof pdon variants are still offensive mons at their core, but they bring valuable defensive utility to the team as well.

now let's take a look at why bulky offense isn't very popular on the ladder.

defensive mons are kinda necessary to check some of the strongest hitters in the meta. mega mewtwo y in particular is what i really think makes balance struggle, because it's so fast that it's really hard to check offensively. you need either imposter or pheromosa. at that point, there's not much of a point to not spamming slow defensive pivots to wall stuff. additionally, the existence of setup kinda forces you to run prankster haze (on defensive teams) or sash spectral thief (on hyper offense teams) but what are you supposed to do on bulky offense? the best example i can think of is an offensive unaware user of some sort

additionally, against defensive teams, more often than not they actually have something to wall your stuff. then they just click u-turn and bring in another mon that matches up well against you and you have to switch out and they click u-turn again etc

but the number one reason why i think bulky offense struggles in bh is the existence of imposter chansey. this is because simply by switching in, imposter takes away all of the team's momentum unless the mon is imposter-proofed by itself. it forces a switch. then i mean if your imposter-proofer gets in safely, what is it going to do other than click u-turn? who knows

with all of that, is bulky offense still viable in bh? i think the best thing it has going for it is rattlepass (rattled + baton pass) meaning that mons get a speed boost from switching in on u-turn. this means that against balance teams, bulky offense has an advantage because thanks to the rattled speed boost the mons can protect themselves from being offensively checked from stuff like mmy. the pass part comes in because the rattled mon's goal is to come in on a defensive mon that counters it as the defensive mon clicks u-turn. this forces the opponent to hard switch back to the defensive mon as you click baton pass and now you have a breaker at +1 speed. still very unreliable due to other pivot moves existing tho

i tried to make a bulky offense team. it is very much a work in progress because it stacks ghost weaknesses and stuff, like seriously it gets 6-0d by giratina so i would not recommend it. the gengar is three of my gimmicks in one set rofl
Gengar-Mega @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Rattled
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
IVs: 0 Def
- Judgment
- Transform
- Counter
- Baton Pass

Solgaleo @ Choice Band
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sunsteel Strike
- Baton Pass
- Thousand Arrows
- Liquidation

Xurkitree @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 248 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power
- Sunsteel Strike

Slowbro-Mega @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Scald
- U-turn
- Heal Order
- Defog

Groudon-Primal @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Soundproof
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- V-create
- Baton Pass
- Ice Hammer
- Tailwind

Chansey @ Earth Plate
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Fake Out
- Whirlwind
- Final Gambit
- Shore Up

so what do you think? can bulky offense be viable in bh? just how bad is the team i provided? thanks for reading!
 
So, I've been wanting to talk about the suspect testing methods for a little bit now and here seems like the best place since I don't want to derail the suspect discussion. I think the current system is fairly flawed in the way it operates right now. The first primary issue I'm seeing is, the better you perform, the less exposure you have to the test. If I understand correctly, the testing process is intended for people to get out, play games, get exposed to the thing being suspected, try it out themselves, experiment with it, and therefore able to make an intelligent vote. The problem is, this isn't how it goes in practice. The best way to get reqs is to ignore the suspect, grab your best laddering team(s), and plow through games. Why is this?

At present, the better you do, the shorter you need to spend. Additionally, you need a very high win rate in order to meet reqs (and such a thing is only consistently possible because the community is small enough that match-ups of even skill are irritatingly rare, but that's beyond our control). This means that winning is more important than testing. Paradoxially, better performance means fewer opportunities to be exposed to the test, so someone who has a few losses under their belt and came out 39/3 is actually more likely to do proper suspect testing than Mr. 19/0. There's little incentive to actually test things because using an unfamiliar team means you're more likely to lose, which in turn means you're less likely to meet suspect requirements.

Then there's the problem that you don't even need to play anyone good. The likelihood of avoiding all skilled players entirely is fairly low, particularly at the start of the testing period, but the more you win, the less likely you'll meet them. You can theoretically farm low skilled players and meet requirements, which teaches the testing player nothing about the suspect.

So if we pause here, I have an imperfect solution if we only consider these points. Rather than making the suspect process based on a ladder metric, make it based on a number of games played. Perhaps with a decent ranking requirement of some form to keep people who don't know what they're doing from making requirements. Something like, minimum 50 games with a 60% win rate seems fair. (Just an example, these numbers can be trivially changed.) It doesn't solve all the problems (someone can still farm low elo players by playing at off-times), but its a good start and it gives room to experiment with the suspect at hand and, even for those wanting to use the suspect to wave their e-peen instead of test by ignoring the suspect and spamming their best team, they're at least twice as likely, if not more, to encounter the thing being tested. Yeah, needing to play many more games would stink but I think it'd be healthier for the testing process and it'd also make getting a loss or two less stressful.


However, this doesn't solve the other major issue: people who don't know what they're talking about can vote and influence the direction of the metagame. Now, I cannot prove that these voters had any influence on any suspect decisions. However, I cannot prove that they didn't either. Until I can read minds across the internet, I can only really speculate how many votes were based on personal reasons or poor logic rather than objective arguments. Ideally, people without good, sound reasoning on the suspect should have no ability to vote. But how do we keep them from doing so?

Simple: instead of a test, there's a suspect debate. Similar to what we have now in the suspect discussion, except one topic is chosen for specific focus. Some sort of impartial neutral party listens to the arguments from both sides and comes to a decision. People making bad arguments would easily be ignored by the decision makers and it'd all come down to which side had the more sound reasoning. It could also potentially speed up the suspect process as we won't need to wait until its our turn to do a ladder test and could even have multiple debates at the same time.

...however, as amazing as this sounds on paper, I'll be first to point out its fraught with its own problems. First, gameplay is eliminated from it as is the feeling of agency by getting a direct vote. Gameplay could be integrated by having some sort of requirement based on it to even participate, but there's not much we can do about the latter. However, the real big elephant in the room here would be, who is the party making the decision? How do we pick some who are as unbiased as possible and able to pick out solid arguments while understanding Pokemon well enough to do so? I mean, as much as I try to be objective and unbiased, I'd hesitate to nominate myself for such a position as I still get urges like "holy crap that Aftermath Caterpie wrecked my team hard, it needs to be banned!"

A debate is the only way I can think of to reliably eliminate the poor logic votes from the suspect process. It has some hefty problems, so I wouldn't be offended if that idea was shot down into oblivion within the hour.


So, to sum up: one suggestion to deal with the suspect testing becoming more of an e-peen contest is to make it less about winning and more about getting games in and getting exposed to the subject of the test. And one suggestion to deal with poor reasoning getting votes is to make the suspect process a formal debate. Even if these are both horrible ideas, hopefully someone else who can come up with better is now aware of the problems.
I think the current system of using COIL (rather than ELO or GXE) is already in place to address the problems you just underlined. It's a function of both skill (estimated by GXE) and experience (games played) and as such seems to be a sensible way to choose people based on these two qualities as opposed to something that requires more than one condition to be met since you need to either be extremely consistent at winning and play a fair few games or, like most of us, lose a few along the way and grind though 40+ battles. Imo this is reasonable since players who can be consistently good (and let's not forget still need to play quite a few battles) would surely have a sufficient knowledge of the metagame to make a informed decision.
The point you raise with an impartial judge deciding after a debate is basically what we have already in the form of quick bans as judged by our Corrupt Leader who I can only assume makes decisions based on wanting a stable metagame after reading any arguments anyone cares to put forward.

I'm not really sure what your post is suggesting since what you seem to want appears to be what we already have but polished up somehow.

sorry for the off topic post but i'm taking a break from bh (yes i will be back) (no that's not the main point of this post) so i want to make this post right now.

i want to talk about bulky offense in bh.

first off i need to make clear what bulky offense actually is, using this quote from the oras ou teambuilding guide (with bh mons substituting ou ones).



now idk about you guys but i haven't actually seen that many bulky offense teams on the ladder. like it seems like every team is either hyper offense with shell smash and contrary galore, or those pivot balance teams that i build with the level 98 audinos.

the most obvious example of a bulky offense team i've seen on the ladder is those six pdon teams. (kind of ironic because of the bulky offense description but i think this is it) pdon is strong for sure, but it's not fast, and it crumbles to attacks like specs ray's boomburst. because of this, the player is forced to run a desolate land pdon and maybe a soundproof one too. keep in mind that desolate land and soundproof pdon variants are still offensive mons at their core, but they bring valuable defensive utility to the team as well.

now let's take a look at why bulky offense isn't very popular on the ladder.

defensive mons are kinda necessary to check some of the strongest hitters in the meta. mega mewtwo y in particular is what i really think makes balance struggle, because it's so fast that it's really hard to check offensively. you need either imposter or pheromosa. at that point, there's not much of a point to not spamming slow defensive pivots to wall stuff. additionally, the existence of setup kinda forces you to run prankster haze (on defensive teams) or sash spectral thief (on hyper offense teams) but what are you supposed to do on bulky offense? the best example i can think of is an offensive unaware user of some sort

additionally, against defensive teams, more often than not they actually have something to wall your stuff. then they just click u-turn and bring in another mon that matches up well against you and you have to switch out and they click u-turn again etc

but the number one reason why i think bulky offense struggles in bh is the existence of imposter chansey. this is because simply by switching in, imposter takes away all of the team's momentum unless the mon is imposter-proofed by itself. it forces a switch. then i mean if your imposter-proofer gets in safely, what is it going to do other than click u-turn? who knows

with all of that, is bulky offense still viable in bh? i think the best thing it has going for it is rattlepass (rattled + baton pass) meaning that mons get a speed boost from switching in on u-turn. this means that against balance teams, bulky offense has an advantage because thanks to the rattled speed boost the mons can protect themselves from being offensively checked from stuff like mmy. the pass part comes in because the rattled mon's goal is to come in on a defensive mon that counters it as the defensive mon clicks u-turn. this forces the opponent to hard switch back to the defensive mon as you click baton pass and now you have a breaker at +1 speed. still very unreliable due to other pivot moves existing tho

i tried to make a bulky offense team. it is very much a work in progress because it stacks ghost weaknesses and stuff, like seriously it gets 6-0d by giratina so i would not recommend it. the gengar is three of my gimmicks in one set rofl
Gengar-Mega @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Rattled
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
IVs: 0 Def
- Judgment
- Transform
- Counter
- Baton Pass

Solgaleo @ Choice Band
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sunsteel Strike
- Baton Pass
- Thousand Arrows
- Liquidation

Xurkitree @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 248 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power
- Sunsteel Strike

Slowbro-Mega @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Scald
- U-turn
- Heal Order
- Defog

Groudon-Primal @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Soundproof
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- V-create
- Baton Pass
- Ice Hammer
- Tailwind

Chansey @ Earth Plate
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Fake Out
- Whirlwind
- Final Gambit
- Shore Up

so what do you think? can bulky offense be viable in bh? just how bad is the team i provided? thanks for reading!
I think it was possibly easier to run Bulky Offense in the EV limit meta since something like Mega Gyarados could run max HP/Attack to perform offensive and defensive roles. However maybe if you expand your definition of offensive to include slightly more then a lot of current teams would at least come close to qualifying as Bulky Offense. Just to illustrate this I'll list a few mons and describe how I think they fit the definition you gave:
Pdon is the obvious example. Good bulk and provides a solid check to Mega Diancie while even defensive sets pressure steel types etc.
MMY: Not particularly bulky at first glance, but the psyterrain sets perform the two roles of checking priority sweepers and sweeping/breaking walls themselves.
Giratina: the defensive roles are obvious but it can pressure a lot with its duel STABs, with core enforcer punishing dragons and PH Pokemon and spectral thief hitting a few common mons for a lot of damage, especially when griseous orb boosted. It may not be a sweeper but it can easily provide an offensive presence.
Mega Gyarados: Something like the banded set (I believe Semako posted one) is a strong wall breaker and pursuit trapper while also providing a switchin for Psychic moves and many others. Even the more defensive Unaware sets often run Knock Off which is a powerful STAB move and can clean up weakened teams while providing utility when used defensively and I personally run ice type coverage to check certain Mega Rayquaza better and to let it break through some fat Dragons.

I'm sure if you think about all but the most defensive or HO pokemon in the tier you can think of many sets that are offensive and provide defensive utility but I agree the number of threats often makes bulkier Pokemon forgo some offensive options in order to compress defensive roles, leaving your team with 1/2 offensive Pokémon + most of a stall team.
 
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I have a team made up of two each of the hoenn babies, but two of them do run shell smash so that probably defeats the point.
The problem with bulky offense in the strict sense is that there is no easy way of boosting both attack and speed, those being the offensive ways to deal with bulkier and faster threats respectively.
so on a bulky offense team you need highly specialized mechanisms to sufficiently achieve at least one of the two, and only after that you can start to consider composition details to try and get the job done of dealing with other types of threats. Another issue is that offensive pokemon rarely can afford to run recovery so in a sense walling opposing walls is more important than switching into opposing offense, not to mention impostor making this even harder.
that team of mine carries multiple tricks and illusions for the former and sticky web etc for the latter but in the end it is most often than not still shell smash that picks up all the bones
 
So, I've been wanting to talk about the suspect testing methods for a little bit now.

Take it easy Rumors;

See the suspect ladder as testing ground.
Many get their high winrates due the lack of serious play on the suspect ladder.
They fear serious opponents as they make it harder to get reqs.

There is always a twist between play for win and play for experience.

I would actually force players to use the suspects in their team.
It makes a huge difference using them yourself instead of having the counters ready.


A debate is the only way I can think of to reliably eliminate the poor logic votes from the suspect process.
You voted Ban Magnet Pull.


the most obvious example of a bulky offense team i've seen on the ladder is those six pdon teams.
Haha.
 
I waited a bit to reply to give people a chance to respond to my post without me coming across like I'm gnawing at the bit ready to shoot at people's posts or something. ...that plus a power outage and The Long Dark doing a major update also helped delay me.

aki0s You mostly seem to reiterate problems I already mentioned. Yeah, the debate suggestion is by no means perfect and has its own problems. I think its probably better than present, but no means the best answer, which eludes me. Though, I'll address some misconceptions.

Emotional arguments can be valid but they still need sound reasoning behind them. Me coming to the suspect discussion and raging that, oh lets say Pixelate Diancie, is completely busted because my last four games it swept me does not mean Diancie is actually broken. Stuff like that also tends to lead to personal attacks and other junk. I don't know about you, but I don't want the direction of the metagame defined by rage and salty tears.

There'd also be no "drowning of voices" or anything. Its still Democracy, but instead of a direct Democracy where everyone votes on issues directly, it's more indirect Democracy, where in this case people would be lobbying/petitioning their representatives to vote for them in a way they want. Greece vs U.S, basically. (Wow, that got way more political than I wanted, heh.) Everyone (with whatever reqs are there, if required) could participate, it just wouldn't be a direct vote. And circle jerking on popular views, well, that's what the elusive neutral decision makers would be for, as they could sort out the ten people all stating the exact same points. Whereas now a big enough circlejerk can potentially win a suspect poll on its own.

In mean, yeah, again, my idea has significant flaws still and I don't expect it to be popular so I really hope someone comes up with better. But I mean, its not designed to drown out voices or encourage circle jerking, but rather try to do the opposite, among other things.


SuperSkylake While I personally like the idea of suspect tours, and it could be a good way to enforce exposure to the suspect element, and I have suggested it before, tours have all the problems tours have, such as exposure to the general player base, scheduling matches, and all the other fun stuff. A round robin format would ease some of it, but it still has tour problems. I wouldn't be opposed to them though and would even encourage them if the usual tour issues can be worked around.


Willdbeast As I illustrated above, I don't entirely agree. Unless you play the first day or two during active hours, your first ten or so matches are likely to be low skill players who, while they might be using the suspected thing, won't be doing so effectively. Of the remaining matches, you'll get some mid-skill players doing their own things and occasionally high skilled player. I think I play... 36 games for the suspect on my successful alt. And encountered S.Tag Gengar twice. And not sure I hit Magnet Pull because Flashfire Ferrothorn was pretty anti-meta (did eat a lot of Band V-Creates though). As such, I was forced to rely more on pre-suspect experience which... shouldn't really happen.

Also, being good at Pokemon is kinda like riding at a bike, you don't really forget. Players who have not played BH in a while but are skilled enough to perform consistently can come back during a suspect test and make requirements pretty easily since good players are few and far between. I did it for some suspect back in Gen VI, I don't remember which, and I'm not the best player in the meta, so I have little doubts there are others who could do it too.

Either way, setting up some sort of system that makes exposure more likely and encourages experimentation with the suspect subject to really test it is what I feel we at least should be doing. A system that encourages taking your best teams and blowing through games with as few losses as possible and punishes you hard for even a couple of losses isn't doing what it needs to do for testing.
 

Champion Leon

Banned deucer.
I call these sets: Automatic

Kyogre @ Blue Orb
Ability: Electric Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder
- Steam Eruption
- Frost Breath
- Shell Smash

Kyogre adds an immunity to Sleep, gains STAB on Thunder through the terrain, gains a second STAB on Steam Eruption through Primordial Sea, always critical hits to break past SpD boosts on foes and -SpA nerfs from Prankster Topsy Turvey with Frost Breath, and sweeps with Shell Smash.

I view it as giving Kyogre a Choice Specs for Thunder and Steam Eruption.

Oftentimes, Electric Surge catches people off guard when they try and Spore, and they don't see the effect because of the color and animation of Primordial Sea.

Kyogre can counter Mega-Gyarados, opposing Kyogre, better handles Flying types like Yvetal, and Thunder is at perfect accuracy or 30% when foes use Protect. Thunder also has a 30% chance to Paralyze, which pairs nicely with Steam Eruption.

Any Kyogre Imposter user has to face this:

Groudon @ Red Orb
Ability: Electric Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0 SpA
- Thousand Waves/Arrows
- Sacred Fire
- Shift Gear
- Bolt Strike

Perfectly counters Imposter Kyogre and most opposing Kyogre regardless, thanks to Bolt Strike.

Sacred Fire and Bolt Strike gain a secondary STAB, and STAB bonus, respectively, as well as a great set of coverage where Bolt Strike lets you use Thousand Waves over Thousand Arrows as you can hit Flying-types Super Effectively, and handle opposing Yvetal, Mega-Gyarados, Lugia, etc.

Electric Terrain negates the need for Safety Goggles, adds power and prevents other Sleep tactics like Rest and Yawn.

Further, Sacred Fire packs a 50% burn rate, and Bolt Strike packs a 20% Paralysis rate, similar to the secondary effects listed on Kyogre.

The benefits of Electric Surge also allow my Prankster teammate to thrive:

Ampharos-Mega @ Red Card / Life Orb
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
-Spe Nature, +SpA
IVs: 0 Spe
- Core Enforcer
- Nature Power
- Copycat
- Tail Glow

Ampharos can go first with Nature Power turning into Thunderbolt, thanks to Electric Surge, and gets both a STAB and a terrain boost. Core Enforcer, with its low Speed, allows it to go second to deactivate abilities, followed by Copycat or Nature Power to go first, thanks to Prankster, on the next turn to hit twice (2x) in a row. Backed by Tail Glow, Ampharos will surprise foes with how strong it's hits land and if Electric Surge runs out, Tri Attack, backed by Tail Glow will still hurt, allowing it to dent Ground and Grass types that expect more Electric Attacks (like Groudon-Primal), oftentimes resulting in 2HKOs:

+3 252+ SpA Mold Breaker Ampharos-Mega Tri Attack vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Groudon-Primal: 242-285 (59.9 - 70.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
--
+3 252+ SpA Life Orb Ampharos-Mega Tri Attack vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Zygarde-Complete: 303-357 (47.6 - 56.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

+3 252+ SpA Life Orb Ampharos-Mega Tri Attack vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Groudon-Primal: 315-370 (77.9 - 91.5%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

Red Card is to be used up the turn you survive the hit when you used Tail Glow, allowing you to force a switch and leave your foe unprepared. Life Orb is an option as well.

Ampharos also has good synergy with the prior 2: Water/Grass/Electric resists, while Kyogre resists Ice, and Groudon resists Fairy. (I included Water in the event that a foe Core Enforces Groudon and it loses its Water Immunity, or if the foe has Primordial Sea, Delta Stream, Cloud Nine, Entrainment, etc.) Ampharos also makes use of its Flying Resistance for Aerilate Rayquaza (Core Enforcer for the KO), etc.

Alternative:
Code:
 Sometimes I replace Ampharos-Mega with Drampa for STAB, Spectral Thief Immunity, and slower Speed.

+3 252+ SpA Silk Scarf Drampa Tri Attack vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Groudon-Primal: 373-441 (92.3 - 109.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

+3 252+ SpA Silk Scarf Drampa Tri Attack vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Zygarde-Complete: 361-426 (56.7 - 66.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+3 252+ SpA Silk Scarf Drampa Tri Attack vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Kyogre-Primal: 249-294 (61.6 - 72.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
 
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The last days, I experimented with Dialga on the ladder, and found Fur Coat to be a very intersting set for it:

Tick Tock Clock (Dialga) @ Adamant Orb
Ability: Fur Coat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Core Enforcer
- Tail Glow
- Doom Desire
- Milk Drink / Blue Flare / Magma Storm

Very often my opponents switched to their Groudon to force Dialga out so that it loses its SpA boosts and the Doom Desire hit becomes much weaker. Fur Coat solves this problem and turns Dialga into a nice physical wall with fearsome firepower. It can now tank Groudon's ground attacks easily and OHKO it with a +3 Core Enforcer.
 
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breathe in

Boi

So lately I've come across a conundrum, as I haven't played Balanced Hackmons for like a year, and even though we've only had a couple bans, I've observed that I can't get a single win versus my usual 1700 on the ladder.
Maybe it's just me, but here's what I find happening to myself:

• When I bring wallbreakers, I often encounter Shell Smash sweepers
• When I bring Shell Smash checks, I often encounter walls

Obviously, I give much more credit to the players using the walls, since they're actually capable of doing something other than just clicking Shell Smash, but both playstyles are very viable and honestly a chore to fight.

Part of me wants to quit playing BH because I've gotten anxiety as to how the hell I'm gonna be able to kill the walls that come at me and always being on my toes about Shell Smash, but another part of me just really wants to get better.

Here's my team (I'll edit if someone will tell me how to do spoilers):

Kyogre-Primal @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Moongeist Beam
- Scald
- Leech Seed

Timid to outspeed MMY after a QD; Moongeist Beam to hit Giratina without needing to use Frost Breath or Freeze Dry (it also does more damage than Ice Beam and KOs the rogue shedinjas)

Solgaleo @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Nuzzle
- Spectral Thief
- Rapid Spin
- U-turn

Psysurge Check & Smash Check #1, with Nuzzle and Rapid Spin just for utility. Dies to physical attacks.

Zygarde-Complete @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Haze
- U-turn
- Core Enforcer
- Heal Order

Smash Check #2, probably the best against it as long as they don't carry Ice. Pretty standard, not much else to say.

Audino-Mega @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Haze
- U-turn
- Milk Drink
- Entrainment

Kind of gimmicky, but Smash Check #3. Mostly just an emergency button or a Normalizegar check (Prankster Entrainment). Works somewhat like a faster Core Enforcer too in that regard. Would consider switching Entrainment for Destiny Bond.

Groudon-Primal @ Focus Sash
Ability: Stakeout
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- V-create
- Sticky Web
- Stealth Rock
- Thousand Arrows

Suicide lead, could use some tweaking. Webs punish grounded while Rocks punish Ray & such. Stakeout kills Magic Bounce users once they see Webs.

Chansey @ Eviolite
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Fake Out
- Final Gambit
- Recover
- Defog

Meme

So yeah, that's basically what I'm working with. Admittedly, Groudon and Audino are the worst sets, but they're not terrible in my eyes.

One of the things I'm a tad opposed to is using stall, or even semi-stall, because that's really not my play style and pretty much the root of all my anxiety in this game.
I may need an -Ate user like Kyurem-W or Diancie, as those have both worked very well in the past for me. I also like Mega Gyarados and might need a Fur Coat user. Any thoughts are appreciated.
 
Groudon-Primal @ Focus Sash
Ability: Stakeout
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- V-create
- Sticky Web
- Stealth Rock
- Thousand Arrows

Suicide lead, could use some tweaking. Webs punish grounded while Rocks punish Ray & such. Stakeout kills Magic Bounce users once they see Webs.
Wecolme Back! First thing I want to say is we don't typically rate teams in this thread. If you didn't know, you can try making an RMT ("Rate My Team") in another thread. One thing I will say about your team is that in BH, suicide leads are really not optimal when compared to a fat, consistent setter of hazards as it's so easy to remove hazards once they've gone up, and even if you were to use a suicide lead, I don't understand why you would use one (or even Sticky Webs for that matter) on a team like this. It doesn't really have any mons that would enjoy Sticky Web that much, Kyogre is your most offensive mon and that's typically seen as a bulky booster that slower powers its way through teams, especially the set you've posted, so I would recommend a more reliable hazard setter to begin with.
 
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Lcass4919

The Xatu Warrior
breathe in

Boi

So lately I've come across a conundrum, as I haven't played Balanced Hackmons for like a year, and even though we've only had a couple bans, I've observed that I can't get a single win versus my usual 1700 on the ladder.
Maybe it's just me, but here's what I find happening to myself:

• When I bring wallbreakers, I often encounter Shell Smash sweepers
• When I bring Shell Smash checks, I often encounter walls

Obviously, I give much more credit to the players using the walls, since they're actually capable of doing something other than just clicking Shell Smash, but both playstyles are very viable and honestly a chore to fight.

Part of me wants to quit playing BH because I've gotten anxiety as to how the hell I'm gonna be able to kill the walls that come at me and always being on my toes about Shell Smash, but another part of me just really wants to get better.

Here's my team (I'll edit if someone will tell me how to do spoilers):

Kyogre-Primal @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Moongeist Beam
- Scald
- Leech Seed

Timid to outspeed MMY after a QD; Moongeist Beam to hit Giratina without needing to use Frost Breath or Freeze Dry (it also does more damage than Ice Beam and KOs the rogue shedinjas)

Solgaleo @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Nuzzle
- Spectral Thief
- Rapid Spin
- U-turn

Psysurge Check & Smash Check #1, with Nuzzle and Rapid Spin just for utility. Dies to physical attacks.

Zygarde-Complete @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Haze
- U-turn
- Core Enforcer
- Heal Order

Smash Check #2, probably the best against it as long as they don't carry Ice. Pretty standard, not much else to say.

Audino-Mega @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Haze
- U-turn
- Milk Drink
- Entrainment

Kind of gimmicky, but Smash Check #3. Mostly just an emergency button or a Normalizegar check (Prankster Entrainment). Works somewhat like a faster Core Enforcer too in that regard. Would consider switching Entrainment for Destiny Bond.

Groudon-Primal @ Focus Sash
Ability: Stakeout
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- V-create
- Sticky Web
- Stealth Rock
- Thousand Arrows

Suicide lead, could use some tweaking. Webs punish grounded while Rocks punish Ray & such. Stakeout kills Magic Bounce users once they see Webs.

Chansey @ Eviolite
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Fake Out
- Final Gambit
- Recover
- Defog

Meme

So yeah, that's basically what I'm working with. Admittedly, Groudon and Audino are the worst sets, but they're not terrible in my eyes.

One of the things I'm a tad opposed to is using stall, or even semi-stall, because that's really not my play style and pretty much the root of all my anxiety in this game.
I may need an -Ate user like Kyurem-W or Diancie, as those have both worked very well in the past for me. I also like Mega Gyarados and might need a Fur Coat user. Any thoughts are appreciated.
i wouldn't bother using sash on groudon. the only thing that really threatens it are water moves and sheer force earth powers. both of which arent common, and gdon kinda loses too anyways. you can easily switch into a LOT of pokemon with its natural bulk, and force a lot of switches might as well run an item like groudium to fire off a powerful tectonic to nail mons like kyogre if they decide not to switch out, and helps you 2hko mons like giratina who can tank 2 arrows. you can use firium too, in order to get a free v-create in without risking the drops but i think tectonic has more of a niche.

by far the BEST setup counter in the game hands down is scarf imposter chansey. honestly, its such an underrated set. and it almost always makes people risk the 50/50 not realizing your faster. you can replace one of your smash checks for another mon of your choice, meanwhile chansey still does its job-albeit fareing a bit less effective vs tanks and walls. so i sudgest something to deal with those.
 
breathe in

Boi

So lately I've come across a conundrum, as I haven't played Balanced Hackmons for like a year, and even though we've only had a couple bans, I've observed that I can't get a single win versus my usual 1700 on the ladder.
Maybe it's just me, but here's what I find happening to myself:

• When I bring wallbreakers, I often encounter Shell Smash sweepers
• When I bring Shell Smash checks, I often encounter walls

Obviously, I give much more credit to the players using the walls, since they're actually capable of doing something other than just clicking Shell Smash, but both playstyles are very viable and honestly a chore to fight.

Part of me wants to quit playing BH because I've gotten anxiety as to how the hell I'm gonna be able to kill the walls that come at me and always being on my toes about Shell Smash, but another part of me just really wants to get better.

Here's my team (I'll edit if someone will tell me how to do spoilers):

Kyogre-Primal @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Moongeist Beam
- Scald
- Leech Seed

Timid to outspeed MMY after a QD; Moongeist Beam to hit Giratina without needing to use Frost Breath or Freeze Dry (it also does more damage than Ice Beam and KOs the rogue shedinjas)

Solgaleo @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Nuzzle
- Spectral Thief
- Rapid Spin
- U-turn

Psysurge Check & Smash Check #1, with Nuzzle and Rapid Spin just for utility. Dies to physical attacks.

Zygarde-Complete @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Haze
- U-turn
- Core Enforcer
- Heal Order

Smash Check #2, probably the best against it as long as they don't carry Ice. Pretty standard, not much else to say.

Audino-Mega @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Haze
- U-turn
- Milk Drink
- Entrainment

Kind of gimmicky, but Smash Check #3. Mostly just an emergency button or a Normalizegar check (Prankster Entrainment). Works somewhat like a faster Core Enforcer too in that regard. Would consider switching Entrainment for Destiny Bond.

Groudon-Primal @ Focus Sash
Ability: Stakeout
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- V-create
- Sticky Web
- Stealth Rock
- Thousand Arrows

Suicide lead, could use some tweaking. Webs punish grounded while Rocks punish Ray & such. Stakeout kills Magic Bounce users once they see Webs.

Chansey @ Eviolite
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Fake Out
- Final Gambit
- Recover
- Defog

Meme

So yeah, that's basically what I'm working with. Admittedly, Groudon and Audino are the worst sets, but they're not terrible in my eyes.

One of the things I'm a tad opposed to is using stall, or even semi-stall, because that's really not my play style and pretty much the root of all my anxiety in this game.
I may need an -Ate user like Kyurem-W or Diancie, as those have both worked very well in the past for me. I also like Mega Gyarados and might need a Fur Coat user. Any thoughts are appreciated.
The obvious solution is to bring wall breakers with shell smash (good luck improofing)
 
Yeah, it currently seems teams largely fall into two archetypes: bulky slow U-Turn spam and set-up spam (usually Smash and Drum). Neither are particularly fun to battle as they feel very match-up dependent. Its easier to build against bulky pivot spam, but set-up spam have tons of options to counter their counters. Oh, gonna use Prankster Haze Registeel to stop their sweep. Well, turns out their Shell Smasher has Prankster Taunt! And they have a Mold Smash for your Unaware over there too.
 
i wouldn't bother using sash on groudon. the only thing that really threatens it are water moves and sheer force earth powers. both of which arent common, and gdon kinda loses too anyways. you can easily switch into a LOT of pokemon with its natural bulk, and force a lot of switches might as well run an item like groudium to fire off a powerful tectonic to nail mons like kyogre if they decide not to switch out, and helps you 2hko mons like giratina who can tank 2 arrows. you can use firium too, in order to get a free v-create in without risking the drops but i think tectonic has more of a niche.

by far the BEST setup counter in the game hands down is scarf imposter chansey. honestly, its such an underrated set. and it almost always makes people risk the 50/50 not realizing your faster. you can replace one of your smash checks for another mon of your choice, meanwhile chansey still does its job-albeit fareing a bit less effective vs tanks and walls. so i sudgest something to deal with those.
Hmmm...I normally used Chansey for scouting and such but I guess I'll take your word for it. Sounds easier than running 3 checks tbh.

i wouldn't bother using sash on groudon. the only thing that really threatens it are water moves and sheer force earth powers. both of which arent common, and gdon kinda loses too anyways. you can easily switch into a LOT of pokemon with its natural bulk, and force a lot of switches might as well run an item like groudium to fire off a powerful tectonic to nail mons like kyogre if they decide not to switch out, and helps you 2hko mons like giratina who can tank 2 arrows. you can use firium too, in order to get a free v-create in without risking the drops but i think tectonic has more of a niche.

by far the BEST setup counter in the game hands down is scarf imposter chansey. honestly, its such an underrated set. and it almost always makes people risk the 50/50 not realizing your faster. you can replace one of your smash checks for another mon of your choice, meanwhile chansey still does its job-albeit fareing a bit less effective vs tanks and walls. so i sudgest something to deal with those.
Yeah, I guess I don't know what I was thinking there. I had always seen Groudon go down quickly anyway, but the Z-move sounds helpful (so accustomed to BH items).

The obvious solution is to bring wall breakers with shell smash (good luck improofing)

Haha no :)

Yeah, it currently seems teams largely fall into two archetypes: bulky slow U-Turn spam and set-up spam (usually Smash and Drum). Neither are particularly fun to battle as they feel very match-up dependent. Its easier to build against bulky pivot spam, but set-up spam have tons of options to counter their counters. Oh, gonna use Prankster Haze Registeel to stop their sweep. Well, turns out their Shell Smasher has Prankster Taunt! And they have a Mold Smash for your Unaware over there too.
Yeah, if it gets out of hand I wouldn't mind trying to get some kind of suspect on Shell Smash. Would need replays though

Also, what's the syntax for hides?
 

morogrim

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
breathe in

Boi

So lately I've come across a conundrum, as I haven't played Balanced Hackmons for like a year, and even though we've only had a couple bans, I've observed that I can't get a single win versus my usual 1700 on the ladder.
Maybe it's just me, but here's what I find happening to myself:

• When I bring wallbreakers, I often encounter Shell Smash sweepers
• When I bring Shell Smash checks, I often encounter walls

Obviously, I give much more credit to the players using the walls, since they're actually capable of doing something other than just clicking Shell Smash, but both playstyles are very viable and honestly a chore to fight.

Part of me wants to quit playing BH because I've gotten anxiety as to how the hell I'm gonna be able to kill the walls that come at me and always being on my toes about Shell Smash, but another part of me just really wants to get better.

Here's my team (I'll edit if someone will tell me how to do spoilers):

Kyogre-Primal @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Moongeist Beam
- Scald
- Leech Seed

Timid to outspeed MMY after a QD; Moongeist Beam to hit Giratina without needing to use Frost Breath or Freeze Dry (it also does more damage than Ice Beam and KOs the rogue shedinjas)

Solgaleo @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Nuzzle
- Spectral Thief
- Rapid Spin
- U-turn

Psysurge Check & Smash Check #1, with Nuzzle and Rapid Spin just for utility. Dies to physical attacks.

Zygarde-Complete @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Haze
- U-turn
- Core Enforcer
- Heal Order

Smash Check #2, probably the best against it as long as they don't carry Ice. Pretty standard, not much else to say.

Audino-Mega @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Haze
- U-turn
- Milk Drink
- Entrainment

Kind of gimmicky, but Smash Check #3. Mostly just an emergency button or a Normalizegar check (Prankster Entrainment). Works somewhat like a faster Core Enforcer too in that regard. Would consider switching Entrainment for Destiny Bond.

Groudon-Primal @ Focus Sash
Ability: Stakeout
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- V-create
- Sticky Web
- Stealth Rock
- Thousand Arrows

Suicide lead, could use some tweaking. Webs punish grounded while Rocks punish Ray & such. Stakeout kills Magic Bounce users once they see Webs.

Chansey @ Eviolite
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Fake Out
- Final Gambit
- Recover
- Defog

Meme

So yeah, that's basically what I'm working with. Admittedly, Groudon and Audino are the worst sets, but they're not terrible in my eyes.

One of the things I'm a tad opposed to is using stall, or even semi-stall, because that's really not my play style and pretty much the root of all my anxiety in this game.
I may need an -Ate user like Kyurem-W or Diancie, as those have both worked very well in the past for me. I also like Mega Gyarados and might need a Fur Coat user. Any thoughts are appreciated.
I wanted to give you actual teambuilding advice but I noticed the problem is way deeper since a lot of your sets aren't even optimal to begin with. Going by the same order you posted:

1. You don't need Timid to outspeed Mmy at +1, neutral max Spe does the trick too. Go for Bold/Modest nature instead. You already have Leech Seed to deal with Shed, so having both Leech Seed and MgB seems a bit repetitive. Ice Beam is better than MgB because it hits all the Dragons that resist Scald, not just Gira (most notably Ray and Zyg-c) and both MgB and Ice Beam 2HKO Gira anyway, so running MgB won't give you much of an advantage over Ice Beam.

2. I'm not a big fan of running Rapid Spin on a mon that can't force out the #1 spin blocker in the tier (Giratina). Spectral doesn't even force out non-FC Gira.

3. Also not a big fan of Unaware Zygarde since most setup sweepers do indeed carry Ice coverage.

4. Prankster Dino is not the best Prankster user imo, but your team really needs a Fairy to take Core Enforcers so...

5. Sash on a mon as bulky as Pdon makes no sense as it can already take almost any 1 hit from anything in the tier. Also, having hazards on a Stakeout mon kind of defeats the purpose of a Stakeout user since you're supposed to use Stakeout to break walls. Even without Stakeout, Pdon already forces switches and can use another ability such as Mold Breaker to get hazards up. Sticky Web also doesn't make much sense in a semi-stall team such as yours and is usually used for more offensive teams.

6. Tbh, it's very hard to screw up an Imposter set. This set is fine.

Overall, I expect a 1700 player to have more BH knowledge than this esp since these errors are fundamental mistakes that don't have much to do with the meta...
 
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