pokemen XY

Why is (Mega Evo 1) the same colour as (Mega Evo 2)?

To be fair, Genesect will probably still be Uber, where, I'll admit, Noivern sucks in. Noivern will more than likely never see it in battle (unless you pulled it in RandBats or Challenge Cup).

While Noivern's defensive capabilities suck, its offensive capabilities are pretty good by OU standards. As you said already, it gets two hard-hitting STABs, it also has coverage moves in Flamethrower and Focus Blast, it can run U-Turn, and it has Infiltrator, allowing it to bypass any Substitute, Light Screen, etc. that tries to block it from sweeping.

Now, yes, Pokemon like Swift Swim Kingdra are more than likely coming back thanks to the weather nerfs, but the Fairy typing that hurts Noivern so much can also benefit it as well. Pokemon like Florges can potentially wall Kingdra for days due to their outrageous special defense and WishProtect strats, where as Ludicolo will die to a Talonflame.

Other Scarfers pose a problem as well, but some of those Scarfed Pokemon will flat out die to some of Noivern's better teammates. Got Scarfed Latis? Meat Assault Vest T-Tar. Scarfed Terrakion? Meet my glorious Azurill.

While Noivern is far from being one of the best Pokemon, it is still good enough to reach OU. :3

. . .What's a childhood again?

Spoiler:

I just try to get the Pokémon's HP down to 0.

You should probably Spoiler tag that, we're trying to keep people reading this fom findout out who we're talking about.

xXtyking1224Xx wrote:

stuff

I don't think Genesect's ever been uber. His offenses aren't nearly good enough, he's ridiculously frail for their standards, and his speed stat gets trolled by the most common Palkia set.

The main problem I see is that while everything you've said is true, what this really implies is that the only way to make Noivern good is to build a team round him. You'll have to cover his weaknesses with specific strategies, such as having a water-and-ice/electric/grass resistant fairy type, a Ludicolo counter (like Ferrothorn; Talonflame doesn't count, as he can't switch in or trap) and something to take down powerful scarfers. Ultimately you're making a team around a Pokemon that isn't powerful enough by itself to warrant it. It's like how OU teams based around Cradily and Darmanitan can be some of the deadliest, but having such a focused team core is very dangerous to do in a game like Pokemon.

Oh, and another important factor in getting into OU is not having someone that outclasses you in every way. Dragonite is very much a better version of Noivern, and Salamence is better than it in everything except speed.

Spoiler:

Also, my Noibat just evolved into a Noivern, and I think it has to be my favorite new Pokémon, possibly my favorite total.

EDIT: More info.

Spoiler:

Genesect has 120 Base offenses and Download. His offenses are definitely good enough for Ubers. I'll agree for frailty and speed, though. Although to counteract, he does just need to be stronger than OU, which he usually is (although Talonflame scoffs at it). This meta could be enough to keep the bug from being Uber, but I highly doubt it. The very same community banned Landorus-I due to a coding error, after all.

And yeah, I guess I did make it seem like you need to build a team around Noivern to make it work, but that wasn't quite my intent. Guess I went overboard with the counters to its counters. ^^; Although I have seen it be played in OU, and it still works out rather well in the meta. Its best partner seems to be Assault Vest T-Tar purely because it can stomp out most Scarfers that can beat it out, and it's few weaknesses can be worked around with Noivern (although switching it into to the eventually released Terrakion's Close Combat. . . eh, yeah, good luck with that one).

And I wouldn't say it's quite outclassed by stuff like Dragonite and Salamence. They can run a better mixed/physical set, true, but Noivern definitely has advantages over the others when it comes to special attacking (barring the trolly SpA stat it has) seeing as it has access to the ever so lovely U-Turn, Infiltrator, again, lets is laugh at subs, and it can launch many powerful attack. While the Specs will be its most common item, it can still run stuff like E-Belt due to most people expecting that, which is also a plus.

More info, sorry I'm slow on getting it.

Spoiler:

E-Belt, definitely not. 10%/20& (dunno which, pretty sure it changed between gens) is terrible. Life Orb is barely enough of a boost to be worth it.

Noivern doesn't really have an advantage in terms of special attacks. It just about beats Life Orb Mence's SpA with a specs, but specs of course forces a switch, whereas Mence's Draco Meteor can be easily followed up with Outrage or Earthquake. Specs Mence of course blows Noivern's special attack completely out of the water. Dragonite also has slightly more special attack than Noivern, but of course his own advantage is simply a guaranteed dragon dance in any team with a decent spinner, and much better bulk than Noivern even outside of that.

Infiltrator wouldn't be that useful anyway, as subs don't even tend to be that common these days. Baton Pass is completely dead as a playstyle, most bulky sweepers like Snorlax are bad now, and for most sets it just takes up a moveslot in a metagame that relies increasingly on health recovery and better coveralls.

Genesect's offenses aren't good enough even with that. Download never actually really benefits, because it increases the stat strong against the opponent's lowest. At best it'll force a switch. The only time it properly helps is if Genesect is sweeping, but Genesect never sweeps. The closest you'll get to a sweeping Genesect has Rock Polish, which then falls apart because the rest of his moves either don't cover enough types (pretty much anything that includes Bug Buzz or a physical equivalent) or aren't powerful enough (lack of STAB on Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Hidden Power, etc.)

I guess the easiest parallel to draw for Noivern is Weavile, who had 125 speed, 120 attack and swords dance. Very popular OU in the early days of gen 4. Technically she's actually much weaker than Noivern because of the low power of Ice Punch and Night Slash, but also back then defenses were much lower. In any case, she fell down pretty drastically, pretty quickly.

So I'm trying strict EV Training for the first time with my new Shiny Abra, and most people seem to think that you should give it this.
4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
But would you guys say there's anything wrong with this instead?
4 HP / 84 Def / 252 SpA / 84 SpD / 84 Spe?

I mean Alakazam already has a Base Speed of 120, it seems a waste to use it only on Speed when he could really do with some defensive cover.

Not even 252/252 Def/Sp Def Alakazam would survive a light breeze. 84 EVs in defenses may as well be 0. Anything that won't OHKO a fully defensive Alakazam is probably not worth using anyway.

On the other hand, having 252 speed at least guarantees the outspeeding of anything slower than Garchomp, or anything slower than Latios (depending on your nature). With neutral speed nature, you need a minimum of like 220 or something EVs to guarantee outspeeding Jolly Garchomp, and with a plus speed nature, you'll want to guarantee a 50-50 against all Sceptiles and Dugtrios and the like, as well as generally a guaranteed outspeeding of anything slower than 120 base speed.

Fair enough, I'll speed him up then.

My Abra is now EV Trained and needs evolving, does anybody mind helping out?

Hmm. . . stat wise, Weavile can be an accurate comparison.

While I defended Noivern, Smogon allowed Genesect, along with Pokemon like Thundurus-I and the like. While I can still see some people using it in OU for XY. . . yeah, it's not touching Pokebank OU anytime soon, unfortunately.

And yeah, Alakazam pretty much use 4 HP, 252 SpA, and 252 Spe for EVs. Alakazam can't even survive a well aimed fart, so if you ever want it to live a hit, just put a Sash on it and let it wreak havoc. Also, Timid nature will be your friend for our lovely little Psychic type. Modest sounds tempting, but outspeeding big threats is much more worth it.

Because it's a Shiny, I didn't exactly get the luxury of Nature, I can't remember exactly but I know it's crap. (EDIT: Just looked up, +Attack, -Defence, which for an Alakazam may as well be Neutral)

And would a Sash really be better? I think Alakazite would be better IMO, because it ups his Sp.Atk from 135 to 175, and his Speed from 120 to 150.

I'm pretty sure Mega Evos won't be allowed in Battle Tower/Frontier, which is presumably where you're using this Alakazam.

Dry wrote:

I'm pretty sure Mega Evos won't be allowed in Battle Tower/Frontier, which is presumably where you're using this Alakazam.

Their allowed in the Battle Maison.

To be honest I have no idea what I'll use it for, at the moment I'm just enjoying the team-building aspect. I may move on to Wi-Fi Tourneys or something like that if I want to give that a go.

Still looking for somebody to help me evolve too.

If this Alakazam is for competitive play, a Sash is a million times better. MegaKazam is strong, I'm not going to lie, but its defenses are still bloody terrible, and it will die to most forms of priority. Seeing as Azumarill, Aegislash, Greninja, MegaMawile, and Talonflame see quite a bit of use competitive, it's not going to live whatever priority they hit it with.

With the Sash, though, you can live that hit and then retaliate with any move to revenge kill. While Kazam's SpA isn't as good as his Mega's SpA, it's still very damn high, high enough to warrant the use of a Sash.

What ability do you have on that 'Zam? If it's not Magic Guard, sash probably isn't worth it. Completely negated by sandstorm and SR.

It's got Synchronise on it.

About the secret spoiler thing.

Spoiler:

Synchronise? You probably won't get much better than Lum Berry. Synchronise 'Zam's kinda been useless since Gen 3, and back then it was a question of Lum Berry or Leftovers. Since Leftovers Alakazam in the gen 6 metagame is lol, go with Lum Berry.

That said I don't know any gen 5/6 items. Some of them might work better.

So Ganon, have you found anybody to trade with to make evolve Kadabra? If not, I should be able to help you there (in some hours after this post, when we're both online of course).

Yeah I found somebody, it's been an Alakazam as of yesterday.

EDIT: Is anybody interested in a X/Y Crusade Tourney? I kinda' feel like setting one up, I think it'd be fun. I think running it according to either Smogon OU or Smogon UU rules would be fair, what do you think?

Furry Heihachi wrote:

Yeah I found somebody, it's been an Alakazam as of yesterday.

EDIT: Is anybody interested in a X/Y Crusade Tourney? I kinda' feel like setting one up, I think it'd be fun. I think running it according to either Smogon OU or Smogon UU rules would be fair, what do you think?

Would that include Gen VI pokemon? Because all of them are stuck in limbo.

Hmm, well if it's OU then we could always just remove the potential Ubers like Xerneas, Yveltal and Zygarde, along with the Mega Evos. After all this generation there aren't many real pseudo-legends.

If y'all are doing an OU tourney, the only Pokemon that are banned are Mewtwo, Xerneas, and Yveltal. :3

And yeah, Dry has it right; your Alakazam is better off with a Lum Berry or a MegaStone. Alth