Pokémon Sword & Pokémon Shield (2019, Switch)

[Ike]

On 06/01/2022 at 10:25 AM, Glen-i said:

Just a final reminder that if you want to enter the Metronome only tournament, you have to register today.

I registered, wasn't going to bother but since you generously shared your team I'll give it a whirl.

3 hours ago, Glen-i said:

It's fine in theory, but then it just devolves into people swapping Pokémon, desperate to get the opponent to run out of PP.

Ah, that's a shame. I guess the berry that restores PP would have been a good item choice in that case.

I thought Dusclops would be good in case the opponent gets Self Destruct/Explosion.

[Glen-i]

13 minutes ago, Ike said:

Ah, that's a shame. I guess the berry that restores PP would have been a good item choice in that case.

I thought Dusclops would be good in case the opponent gets Self Destruct/Explosion.

Funny you mentioned that. Because it didn't help me.

Turns out Ghost typing doesn't help when you're the one exploding!

First match! And then my third Pokémon got Misty Explosion! In the same match!

[Ike]

Seems they don’t let you use rental teams in these, or I can’t figure out how to use one.

[Glen-i]

34 minutes ago, Ike said:

Seems they don’t let you use rental teams in these, or I can’t figure out how to use one.

Do they not? Huh, must have gotten it mixed up with Ranked Battles.

My bad.

[Glen-i]

The next three Online Competitions have a participation gift that some of you might actually want.

Shiny Galarian Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres.

Registration for the February International Challenge (which gives you Articuno) opens up on the 3rd of February.

Don't worry about doing well, you only need to complete 3 battles, win or lose, to qualify for the gift.

[Ike]

Ah Galarian, Freezer, Fire and Thunder.

Do want.

[Glen-i]

Sign-ups for the first International Challenge are now open until the 17th of February.

As mentioned before, the participation gift for everyone who completes 3 battles, win or lose, is a Shiny Galarian Articuno.

Get on that now, @Ike.

The competition starts on the 18th of February.

EDIT: In other news;

This means that Sword/Shield are now the second best selling Pokémon games, knocking Gold/Silver out of that spot.

Spoiler

Holy crap at BD/SP! Switch Effect in full force there! It might even beat Black/White at that rate! That would be legit bonkers!

Gen 5's tepid sales will forever be the greatest injustice in mainline Pokémon history.

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Glen-i

[bob]

Sign-ups for the first International Challenge are now open until the 17th of February.
As mentioned before, the participation gift for everyone who completes 3 battles, win or lose, is a Shiny Galarian Articuno.
Get on that now, [mention=763]Ike[/mention].
The competition starts on the 18th of February.
EDIT: In other news;

This means that Sword/Shield are now the second best selling Pokémon games, knocking Gold/Silver out of that spot.
Spoiler
Holy crap at BD/SP! Switch Effect in full force there! It might even beat Black/White at that rate! That would be legit bonkers!
Gen 5's tepid sales will forever be the greatest injustice in mainline Pokémon history.
 

What's the greatest injustice in all of Pokémon history?

[Glen-i]

That's easy, @bob. Porygon and it's evolutions being banished from the anime series because Pikachu caused seizures in viewers.

They were scapegoated.

[bob]

#Porygondidnothingwrong

[Glen-i]

13 minutes ago, bob said:

#Porygondidnothingwrong

I was so close to typing that at the end of my post!

[Ike]

On 03/02/2022 at 7:13 AM, Glen-i said:

Get on that now, @Ike.

Thanks for the reminder, all signed up.

[Glen-i]

Just now, Ike said:

Thanks for the reminder, all signed up.

Oh right, it's worth mentioning that this follows current VGC rules, which allow for 2 normally banned Pokémon (Legendaries like Mewtwo, for example) in your team of six.

So keep that in mind, if you're not planning on just throwing fights to meet the gift criteria.

[Ike]

4 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Oh right, it's worth mentioning that this follows current VGC rules, which allow for 2 normally banned Pokémon (Legendaries like Mewtwo, for example) in your team of six.

So keep that in mind, if you're not planning on just throwing fights to meet the gift criteria.

Aye, I'm aware. I rented a team a Youtuber featured in a couple of videos, since I don't have any competitive Legendries ready and I'm not sure I'll have time to put together a team. Might as well give it a decent shot. 

[Glen-i]

The online competition is now live.

Complete three battles to be eligible for the Shiny Articuno.

EDIT: It amazes me to this day how often people get blindsided by my Groudon, Speedy. People send out a water Pokémon to cancel out Drought, except that 9 times out of 10, they get outsped, and get a Thunder Punch to the face for their troubles.

It consistently gets me a free KO, and it never gets old!

Edited February 18, 2022 by Glen-i

[Ike]

Oops, forgot you can’t use rental teams. Might have to pay for Home, I think most of the restricted ’mons are in there. Or just throw the matches.

[Glen-i]

4 hours ago, Ike said:

Oops, forgot you can’t use rental teams. Might have to pay for Home, I think most of the restricted ’mons are in there. Or just throw the matches.

You can just throw the matches. It still counts.

[Ike]

Made someone rage quit, so it was a win in my eyes.

[Glen-i]

1 hour ago, Ike said:

Made someone rage quit, so it was a win in my eyes.

@Ugh first aid also said something of a similar nature to me on WhatsApp.

Corsola really is annoying if you don't have a special attacker that hits a weakness, huh?

[Ike]

45 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

@Ugh first aid also said something of a similar nature to me on WhatsApp.

Corsola really is annoying if you don't have a special attacker that hits a weakness, huh?

Caught an Incineroar on the switch in with a critical hurricane which OHKO'd, the crit probably didn't matter. They had a burnt Zacian in the back. I think they still could have won it though.

[Ike]

Articuno is available to claim.

[darksnowman]

The game offered me a ten-minute update so I took it. No idea what it added or fixed but it did seem to use up the best part of ten minutes so it was a whopper.  Normally those downloads say ten mins then take less than ten secs. 

I faffed about a bit finding the wild area on the map (don't judge me) and then faffed about even more going through the menus to see if I could take advantage of the current event without an active NSO sub. It seemed like I was going to be denied but I honestly did go through every option and button press and found a way to refresh the wild area over WiFi without NSO.  Thought that was me good to go and seconds away from getting a charmander, squirtle and bulbasaur but no, not at all. I faffed around a lot more going around the wild area checking those little stone-circled holes in the ground and getting only W for my effort. After a lap of that and dodging Pokémon that for some reason wanted a piece of me, I found some with a column of light  and was in battle with a thievul then a swoobat which I duly vanquished and caught--without ultra balls to boot!

I was gonna call it quits after getting stormed out of a vileplume encounter when I came across a 5* venusaur all the way down back!  Entered into battle with it, got put to sleep and sent packing. Tried again with the "big boy" aka the boxart legendary and was swiftly earthquaked back out of there again. 

It doesn't seem like I can deal enough damage to down the shield and take it out within the storm limit.  The CPU colleagues it gave me should probably shoulder some of the responsibility too. Nitwits.

[Hero-of-Time]

Yeah, the AI partners you get can be very hit or miss. Sometimes they are pretty useless but other times they actually use moves that are beneficial.

[Glen-i]

39 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

It doesn't seem like I can deal enough damage to down the shield and take it out within the storm limit.  The CPU colleagues it gave me should probably shoulder some of the responsibility too. Nitwits.

Doesn't help that the 5 star Kanto Starters are level 80, 20 levels higher then the usual.

Even if you're level 100, the AI only scales to around 60-ish. So they're vastly underpowered for this. Add to that the mostly awful Pokémon and movesets they have, and it's a losing fight most of the time.

It's obviously designed like that to encourage people to play raids with others. Otherwise, no-one would play them online. I just wish people online would stop using legendaries, it gets boring seeing the same Pokémon all the time.

The only thing you can realistically do without NSO is build a competitive Pokémon to dish out as much damage as possible.

EDIT: You're not using Zacian/Zamazenta/Eternatus, are you? They can't Dynamax, so they're not ideal for playing with AI, who never Dynamax.

Dynamax moves knock off 2 notches of a shield, which is very important.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Glen-i

[darksnowman]

2 hours ago, Glen-i said:

EDIT: You're not using Zacian/Zamazenta/Eternatus, are you? They can't Dynamax, so they're not ideal for playing with AI, who never Dynamax.

Dynamax moves knock off 2 notches of a shield, which is very important.

Yeah, after going on the offensive with a fire type the first time around barely got the venusaur under half health, I threw Lance in next thinking that'd be the end of it. I noticed it didn't have the option to Dynamax but I didn't know if that was a limitation of the legendaries or something to do with an item I'd forgotten about. 

I've got the fire starter on lvl 72, then Lance on 70, Paroxic on 66, Major Tom and Eternatus on 64, and Hank on lvl 62. I would doubt there's anything in that range in the boxes. 

I'll give it another go and see if I get luckier with the support characters and losing turns to sleep, but maybe the level difference is going to be insurmountable.