Stat Stages

So what do moves like Defense Curl actually do. Your Defense is rising, sure. How much?

Well, every stage a stat goes up or down changes their stats quite significantly. Each stat can go up or down beyond the unmodified number six times in either direction. These numbers represent the Pokémon's stat with each stage, compared to its unchanged value:

 -6    -5     -4    -3     -2    -1       0        +1      +2      +3       +4      +5      +6
1/4   2/7   1/3   2/5   1/2   2/3   100%  150%  200%  250%  300%  350%  400%


There's a pattern there. Each positive stage adds 50% to the normal value, whereas each negative stage is simply 1 divided by the value of the positive stage. This might be a good way to remember it. If you can't remember it, the most important stages are -6, -2, 0, +2, +4 and +6. Just treat the others as 'somewhere in between'.

Accuracy and Evasion are different, however. For these stats, -6 is 1/3, -3 is 1/2, +3 is 200% and +6 is 300%.

The accuracy of a Pokémon's attack (including Accuracy changes) is divided by the receiving Pokémon's Evasion to get the final check for whether the attack connects.


Pretty much all of this information is from websites like Serebii. Credit goes to them for finding out/otherwise compiling this information. I merely bring this information to any of my readers who are interested and may not know where else to look. Do check out this website for other game information.

Until next time!

-Pokéxplain

Doubles: Immense power!

A strategy called 'SafeSwag' involves a support Pokémon using Safeguard, to protect their team from status effects - Burn, Poison, Frozen, Sleep, Paralysed... and Confusion. To finish SafeSwag, the support Pokémon uses Swagger on its ally, raising their Attack by 2 stages (doubling their Attack) - and Safeguard stops them from getting confused. Now they're a real threat.

But what if that's not enough? What if I want ultimate power? The solution is simple.

Simple. It's an ability that doubles stat stage modifications. You see where this is going now, don't you? If a Simple Pokémon is buffed with SafeSwag, their Attack is raised by 4 stages (tripling their Attack stat!), which makes them a giant force to be reckoned with. And don't even get me started on using Simple Beam on Slaking! (although this takes significantly longer, as while Slaking has Truant, it can't be hit by Simple Beam)

Along with a good Speed Boost -> Baton Pass strategy, Simple SafeSwag is one way to make your Pokémon an unstoppable force! An unstoppable force that can be stopped by Haze or Clear Smog, indeed, but it's still threatening!

Until next time...

-Pokéxplain

Truant

The one thing stopping Slaking from destroying the entire Pokémon world.

Overview

Truant is an ability which basically halves the Pokémon's usefulness. On one turn, it will use a move. The next, it will just sit there and take damage. But even with this ability, Slaking is devastating. It can one-hit KO most Pokémon on the first turn, then when it's loafing on the second, it can just take most hits without fainting. This makes Slaking capable of almost always getting two KOs on its own.

Using Slaking

Besides the obvious, there are a few more ways to use Slaking that work toward negating Truant:

Ability changers: Skill Swap, Simple Beam, Entrainment. All of these make Slaking lose its ability, and become the ultimate force ever. At this point, Slaking can stand up to Groudon and Kyogre, and due to a negative ability of its own, completely outclass Regigigas. With no Truant ability, Slaking can make full use of those ridiculous stats.

Switching: Although I wouldn't consider it the most useful, due to how risky it can be, there is a strategy where Slaking gets a one-hit KO and immediately switches out to avoid Truant. The usefulness of this can range from Slaking taking 0 damage and winning the game, to you sacrificing both Slaking and your perfect counter to one of your opponent's overpowered Pokémon, and promptly being destroyed.

Embrace the Second Turn: Giga Impact. The turn you have to recharge for and the turn Truant stops you from taking happen at the same time. This cancels out one or the other, giving a free massive hit. The problem with this is, it's only useful when used on something that Slaking can't normally beat in one hit, and it also can't be combined with switching out, and if you rely on Giga Impact, it completely negates the positive effects of using a new ability. However, if done correctly, it can be used in perfect harmony with an ability changer.

Beating Slaking

If a Pokémon with Truant flinches when it's supposed to attack, it still can't do anything next turn, due to Truant. As a result, Fake Out is the single most reliable way to shut down Slaking strategies, since it always moves first and always makes the target flinch. Of course, you'll need some way of taking it out immediately after, since Fake Out can only be used as the first attack a Pokémon uses when sent out.

Protect also works, and forces Slaking to either faint or switch out, since you'll be alternating between that and a strong KO move. Slack-Off does counter this strategy, however, unless you can KO it in one hit or out-predict Slack-Off.

In double battles, Fake Out and Close Combat on the first turn guarantee a KO before turn 3, when Slaking can first move.

Durant

Durant's Hidden Ability is Truant. While it may seem obvious that it's better to go with the non-hidden ability, it's actually the case that Durant learns Entrainment. Fail to counter this and all your Pokémon will also have Truant.

Fortunately, it's generally not that hard to counter this. Have a good Fire-type attack Durant, and if it gets Truant, switch it out and back in (abilities change to the Pokémon's own when switched). Since the ability makes it otherwise completely useless, the only real threat Durant can pose is just Entrainment. In double battles, however, this makes it deadly when used with a good sweeper. Once again, Fake Out and Protect are good counters.

So this is an underpowered ability that can be used to your advantage? Just think what else can be used to much greater effect than anyone knew! Until next time.

-Pokéxplain

Technician

If you're thinking of using a Pokémon with the ability Technician on your team, here are a few hints as to how it works. If you're just curious, maybe you'll consider using such a Pokémon.

First, how the ability interacts with moves. A move with a base power - including the effects of the moves - of 60 or less is made 1.5x as powerful. This means, without same-type attack bonus (STAB), the most powerful a move can get after being affected by this ability is 90. Most Pokémon with the ability don't learn anything worthwhile with over 90 power anyway, so you'll usually just stick four 60BP moves on it.

When I say 'including the effects of moves', I mean - if you use a move like Acrobatics without an item, it won't have its power boosted to 165. For this reason, you should probably try to avoid moves with these effects on a Technician Pokémon.

STAB doesn't remove the effects of the ability - meaning a STAB Technician 60BP move will have 135 base power. At this point, it's clear to see Technician can be an immense ability if utilised well.

There are ways like this to make other abilities very powerful, so look out for them! Or check back here to see if I've analysed any more powerful abilities!

-Pokéxplain

It's Super Effective!

I'm pretty sure everyone has had the message "It doesn't affect the foe's Pokémon..." at least once while playing. A great part of competitive battling is getting 'super-effective' hits. This involves knowing what type - or combination of types - your target is, out of 18, and how other types match up.

First, type matchups that do no damage whatsoever.
Normal/Fighting -> Ghost
Ghost -> Normal
Ground -> Flying
Electric -> Ground
Poison -> Steel
Psychic -> Dark
Dragon -> Fairy

In the case of Normal/Fighting vs Ghost, the ability Scrappy and the move Foresight will allow successful hits to be made. Everything else can only be stopped if the target is holding a Ring Target.

While some matchups are really obvious (Water beats Fire), others are a little obscure. To help you remember them, I'll include short explanations.

Key: (> Super effective) (~Not very effective)

Bug > Dark - Bugs can see in the dark.
Bug > Psychic - A psychic can't read a swarm's mind to defend itself.
Fighting ~ Psychic - A fighter's unchanging techniques are easy to predict.
Fighting ~ Flying - Martial arts don't work on birds.
Fighting > Ice, Rock, Steel - A karate chop with enough skill to shatter all three.
Ghost > Ghost - A ghost knows a ghost's weakness.
Dragon > Dragon - Magically charged fire breath breaks through another dragon's magic hide.
Poison/Steel > Fairy - Our poisons are foreign to fairies, so they have no resistance. 'Cold Iron' in legend is toxic to fairies.

For a full list of type matchups, this can be useful.

If you clicked the link, you'll notice moves can have quarter or quadrupled effectiveness. The single-type chart won't show any, but this is how multiple types interact with each other:
Type effectiveness multiplies damage. This means if one type resists your attack (halves damage) and another is weak to it (doubles damage) the final damage will be neutral effectiveness.
This also means a Dark/Fighting type still takes no damage from Psychic, even though it would normally hit 2x on Fighting.
As mentioned before, two weaknesses to the same type makes the Pokémon take four times the normal damage. Two resistances lowers it to a quarter.

If you don't know a Pokémon's type, either look it up or experiment to see what's good against it! Of course, you'll want to know the majority of their types before you start battling competitively!

Whether you're playing competitively or in story mode, you should always go for a 4x effective move when possible! (unless you're a hardcore player who's playing with intentional handicaps)

-Pokéxplain

Legends vs Strategy

A very common notion in the competitive scene (the 'big shots' in online battles) is that legendary Pokémon destroy everything there is.

What if I told you... This is both true and false.

First off, why it's false. Even though legendaries have insanely high stats, most users of non-legendaries don't quite seem to understand how to pull them off properly. I've had many a battle where my opponent sends out two intimidating beasts that, due to being legendary, should surely secure victory for them... And then I score a super-effective hit on both of them, and now we're 2-0. I've already won either a third or a half of the battle. Oh, and two more legendaries replace them and I get a 4-0 or 6-0 sweep.

What gives? Aren't legendaries giant beasts that are made of pure awesomeness?

Well, it's just that so many common Pokémon counter them. While Arceus has a base stat total (an approximate measure of power spread over all of a Pokémon's 6 stats) of 720, and Mega Mewtwo has 780, non-legendaries aren't far behind at all. Slaking has 670 stat total, making it ridiculously powerful if played correctly, and 'Pseudo-Legendaries' like Dragonite and Garchomp have 600. Also, the exact distribution of the stats comes into play, making certain Pokémon far greater sweepers than legendaries.

On to the next thing: The idea that a legendary secures a win is entirely false. Someone who believes that legendaries automatically win is less likely to have a good strategy, and probably even less likely still to have a good counter-strategy. Mewtwo is easily knocked out in one turn by a Greninja using Night Slash. Yveltal and Xerneas are generally not even that threatening when used by an inexperienced player, and Smack Down or Poison Jab, respectively, will make short work of them. Arceus is quite a special case, as it can be any type. However, the rarity of Arceus, and how it's rarer still to see Arceus played well, make this less relevant. As a general rule, any super-effective hit with a move of high enough power should either faint or greatly threaten Arceus, and it probably can't fight back effectively unless its four moves are diverse enough (of course, diversity is rare on a legendary that isn't played to its fullest potential).

And of course, type matchups. Mega Mewtwo could tower over your entire team, most likely being able to knock them all out in two hits. And then a fast sweeper Greninja comes in and uses Night Slash (Y) or Acrobatics (X). The same goes for all legendaries, and indeed everything. Everything has a type weakness, and everything has a counter.

So legendaries are useless, right?  RIGHT?!

No. If you plan ahead, think of your strengths and weaknesses and teach moves and distribute EVs and develop a strategy that takes advantage of your strengths and nullifies your weaknesses, and lets you know when it's a good time to switch to something that will actually survive this next hit, you can make something rare and valuable - a legendary that actually wins battles.

And yes, these rules do go for everything. an insanely overpowered beastly destroyer of worlds can easily be beaten by Slurpuff.  And then the Poison-types come along. And then Claydol says hi.
Also, this is how the metagame evolves. Counters are developed and the game as a whole becomes more diverse. If you're a competitive battler, you should keep this in mind, and mix your team up a bit! Who knows? Maybe Mega-Mewtwo will become the anti-metagame in the future. Your team might become the next anti-metagame! :D

-Pokéxplain

This Blog

Hey there!

The purpose of this blog is to put together information on Pokémon that may be hard to find elsewhere. This ranges from lesser-known effects from Abilities and Moves, to competitive strategies. I will post periodically, and I accept requests. So if you have a question that you need answering, please post it in the comments section under any post, and I'll try my best to answer it.

-Pokéxplain