Pokemon of the Week - Big Announcement Inside!

[Richard and Blaziken]

So I've been doing Pokemon of the Week articles here for a while, and I was wondering what people thought on them, if anything, and what people might like to see that currently isn't there.

I get it, we don't have as many competitive battlers as we once had, so interest for competitive battling advice isn't as big on a site like this as it once was, but it's definitely what I know best when it comes to Pokemon, and I playtest every Pokemon before I write the sets for it to ensure that they work as I've written.

I used to have guest writers do "Unearthed" articles, but to rely on others to consistently put out content every week, especially when it comes to researching something every week when they have other things to do isn't very fair.

So I come to you, people of PKMN.net. I put a lot of time and effort into every one of these articles, and I want people to enjoy them, so help me out here. What would you like to see more of in them?

[Sizacu]

Personally, I enjoy them! Even if I disagree with some of your opinions on the Pokemon you write about, it's still interesting to hear different opinions of a Pokemon.

I also really like the unearthed parts of the articles, as little as we see them now. I'm not going to be able to contribute to that part because of how busy I'm going to be for a while, but I hope another person will write stuff like that!

[SirBlaziken]

I'm wish Sizacu, I'm a big fan, and my haxorus even runs one of your sets.

[Richard and Blaziken]

Thank you both :>

To elaborate on Unearthed, it will likely not see a return, as it was a joint idea by Tim and Kay, and neither of them have the time to write an article every week on it (and I don't blame them, writing anything weekly does feel like a chore after a while), and I don't think I'd do that justice in the way that they did.

However, if there's an idea akin to that that you'd like to see, perhaps focusing on something else in a non-competitive aspect of the Pokemon in question, I'd be up for trying something new, provided I know about it!

[Spriter]

Well, there's nothing you need to improve when it comes to the analysis and the sets and the feature for an ingame set is also good. Finding people to help you isn't easy, but if there was someone willing to look into the dex entries and write about them like the unearthed section did, that would be beneficial.

[NTN]

Richard, thank you for everything you've done. It really helps me decide what Pokémon I want to train, and if I want to train something, it shows me effective ways of using them. Besides helping me decide what Pokémon I want to train, I can see if I want to train any one Pokemon or not. It helps me fill in the empty spaces to building an effective team. I haven't seen anything I'd disagree with yet on your Pokémon of the Week. I do have a few questions for you about Competitive Battling, but I don't know where to ask them.

I'd like to know how Pokémon of the Week works, as in, can we request which Pokémon you should discuss, or you can only decide on your own?

[Richard and Blaziken]

Thanks, that means a lot to me. :>

Questions can be PM'd or posted in articles themselves, if the questions pertain to the Pokemon I'm covering. Requests are welcome as well, though it may take a little bit of time for me to get to a certain Pokemon if I've got less experience using it (things like Spinda, for example), but suggestions are completely welcome!

[sans the skeleton]

Richard, thank you for everything you've done. It really helps me decide what Pokémon I want to train, and if I want to train something, it shows me effective ways of using them. Besides helping me decide what Pokémon I want to train, I can see if I want to train any one Pokemon or not. It helps me fill in the empty spaces to building an effective team. I haven't seen anything I'd disagree with yet on your Pokémon of the Week. I do have a few questions for you about Competitive Battling, but I don't know where to ask them.

I'd like to know how Pokémon of the Week works, as in, can we request which Pokémon you should discuss, or you can only decide on your own?

Aw, Draghost's getting sentimental :')

[Turner]

The articles look very thorough and there is no doubt you know what you're talking about. If I were to take a guess I'd say it might be because not many people view the homepage and go straight to the forums instead. I might be totally wrong but a lot of what happens outside of the forums completely bypasses me because of this and I'm going to assume a lot of people feel the same. I went through a long period of doing lots of painstaking IV breeding for the first half of this year and right now I'm pretty burned out on thinking about competitive battling as a result.

[Richard and Blaziken]

Thanks Turner. I appreciate the feedback from all of you quite a lot. I think lack of knowledge about these being posted, or even existing might be a contributing factor in people not reading them, so would there be interest in me posting here every week alerting people to them being posted? I mean, I don't want to be all self-advertising, I just want people who are interested to be able to find them!

If not, I won't do it again, but as requested by Draghost, I've just posted Porygon-Z's article (and spent many hours not only writing it, but testing it. Jeez, this one took a while with all the sets P-Z can run x_x; )

[quack98]

Nice work on Porygon-Z, it's one of my favourite 'mon so I is whim quite a lot, I might have to try some of these sets if I get chance. Interestingly, I don't actually run any of them, I run a suicide Hyper Beam set, which is:

Porygon-Z @ Choice Specs (Adaptability)
-> Hyper Beam
-> Dark Pulse
-> (doesn't matter)
-> (doesn't really matter)
(4,0,0,252,0,252)

I know hyper beam is hated, but I love it on Porygon-Z, mainly because of this:

Hyper beam vs Aggron (choice band set) = Minimum 74.11% ON A 4x RESIST!

Also

OHKOs any Neutral Calm Mind Arceus.

And of course

64.45% chance to 2HKO blissey.

The main problem with this is, it's one use. After you attack, he's (nearly) guaranteed to die. A focus sash can work, but then he often loses out on a KO. Dark Pulse is only really there in case he survives and a ghost type comes, it doesn't get used much.

[Richard and Blaziken]

The main problem with Hyper Beam is that it still leaves you completely vulnerable the next turn. While it does indeed have incredible power, you're begging to be setup on, and the common Ghost switch-in will be happy to do so. As Porygon-Z spends most of it's time in UU, you won't see Blissey, Chansey or Aggron (OU, BL, and RU, respectively). If you're using P-Z in an OU enviroment, Hyper Beam is still not an attractive option as there are even more Fighting types who'd love to come in after you've KO'd something with Hyper Beam and setup while you recharge, then proceed to knock you out and possible sweep your team. The risk is not worth the reward.

[quack98]

The Idea of that set is just to basically have an 'I win' button against any single enemy pokemon, for instance my team hugely struggles against Blaziken (this is online, normally Blaze ability) so I just use hyper beam if I see him. It doesn't matter if he dies afterwards, he's done his job (I'm so nice to my pokemon  )

[Richard and Blaziken]

But Tri-Attack would KO it anyway, so you've basically screwed yourself!

I understand the point, and if P-Z had a 5th moveslot... well, no, it would use both boosting moves, but if it had about 8 or so, Hyper Beam would be in there as a last-ditch move to wipe out specially bulky Pokemon, but it absolutely does not merit a moveslot as it currently stands, as P-Z needs the coverage of Fighting and Dark to hit Ghosts, Steel types and Rock types, with the final slot being much better filled by a boosting move or Trick in the case of Choice sets. It's not a competitive option, really.

Edit: I'm not trying to be condescending, and I hope it doesn't come off that way, I just really don't want people thinking that Hyper Beam is a competitive option. There are better moves to fill the slot it would take, such as Nasty Plot, which turns all of your Tri-Attacks into Hyper Beams without recharge and with a 20% chance of statusing the opponent. It's just not worth it with the 2 coverage moves it needs to have and Tri-Attack being the reliable STAB it has to use.

[quack98]

8 moveslots... I'd love that...

Yeah, I see your point, I just like the massive amount of OHKOs

On a Side note, imagine Porygon-Z with gen 1s Hyper Beam rule (if it KOs, no recharge)