What is Your Favorite Playstyle?

[Slife]

There are many different ways to win a Pokemon battle. Do you like to go all-out offensive or prefer to play things safe with a few walls on your team? Is keeping up the momentum and pressure your top priority or do you find that slowly chipping away at your opponent's team is the best way to go? Each playstyle offers unique strategies for teambuilding and battling. Which ones have you tried, and which ones do you enjoy using the most?

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

I play both HO and stall (and I usually/sometimes use volt-turn when playing HO so I checked volt-turn as well)

 

[Wispy Willow]

Two words: Trick Room. Best strategy 10/10.

...In Doubles at least, in Singles I prefer a more balanced approach, though I am not opposed to stalling or Rain either.

 

[MachDragonX]

I pretty much play any offensive playstyle, with the exception of weather. Straight-up offense is my favorite, followed by bulky offense and balance. I don't enjoy weather-based strategies, not because I have anything against weather per-say, but because I don't like having to consistently worry about keeping weather conditions active during battles. A lot of Pokemon need certain weather conditions to be active in order to be effective.

But no matter what type of team I'm running, I usually like to include at least one (sometimes two) defensive Pokemon that can switch in on certain key threats and proceed to set up hazards/remove hazards or KO/force out those threats (examples: TankChomp, Heatran, Landorus-Therian, Ferrothorn, Rotom-Wash, Klefki, Skarmory, Mew, Mandibuzz, etc.).

 

[Youngster_Jack]

Yep yep, Semi Stall the top result thus far, as expected. Such an entertaining way to play, love having the opponent on strings .

 

[White Crow]

It certainly has changed over the years. When I first started my motto was "the best defense is a good offense", unfortunately this wasn't really good given the fact my teams were frail and unbalanced and I was easily crushed by bulky and other stall teams.
I learned from past mistakes and now I balance my teams better and I am open to try all kinds of stragedies (especially TR)so I don't have a fixed playstyle, but I lean towards offensive teams most of the time.

 

[Gengarzilla]

I mostly enjoy weatherless offence with fast Pokémon, preferably with setup moves. My lean is primarily towards offence in general but I see myself as open to other methods.

Stall is more often than not a no-no for me though. I'm not sadistic enough to enjoy watching my opposition struggle like that. Demolishing them feels merciful in comparison.

 

[Soki]

Mostly offense. I don't have the patience for stalling and like Gengarzilla I don't like putting people through it (as I do hate having to deal with stall teams myself).

Also voted for weather, as I've used a sun team for a triple battle competition once, which did really well. Would definitely consider using it again, but only for triples though.

Both Volt-Turn offense and Trick Room seem interesting/fun too, will probably try them sometime.

 

[Morru]

I'm all about going 110% aggro on my opponents, so hyper offense it is. Dealing huge amounts of damage in one go is where its at.

 

[Zeb]

Any sort of offensive playstyle is usually my go-to. But I absolutely cannot stand stall and won't use it.

 

[Youngster_Jack]

Trick room is one for the vgc doubles usually, correct? Or just doubles in general? I've never see a TR team in singles before.

 

[Wispy Willow]

Trick room is one for the vgc doubles usually, correct? Or just doubles in general? I've never see a TR team in singles before.

Well, that's because Trick Room is best used in a format where there are multiple Pokémon from each player on the field at the same time, i.e. Doubles, VGC, Tripples and even Rotation to a certian extent. The reason behind this (and why it isn't as common in Singles) is A. the second 'mon (or third) on the field can help the first set up Trick Room in the first place and B. usually in Singles the Room setter is not exactly the most damaging of Pokémon, and thus has to switch out after using it to send something that can actually do damage in The Room, wasting one of the four turns it's in effect (since the activation turn counts as one TR turn for some reason). That and Doubles and Tripples teams can get more stuff done in The Room since they have more 'mons on the field at the same time to work with so yeah I really rambled a lot here sorry.

Though that has me thinking, a TR team might be really fun to run in Rotation since you don't actually have to switch out to send in a 'mon to take advantage of The Room... But I digress.

 

[MrMeowPuss]

Only in the past few weeks I've started to try battling competitively and I've really taken a liking to Trick Room.

One thing I like to do with TR is giving something fast like Gardevoir an iron ball, then it takes advantage of the slow speed. A lot of people switch out as soon as they see Gardevoir so I always get that TR off easy. I've only been doing Free Battles and I was surprised how easy it is to sweep a full team of legendaries with TR.

 

[Wispy Willow]

Only in the past few weeks I've started to try battling competitively and I've really taken a liking to Trick Room.

One thing I like to do with TR is giving something fast like Gardevoir an iron ball, then it takes advantage of the slow speed. A lot of people switch out as soon as they see Gardevoir so I always get that TR off easy. I've only been doing Free Battles and I was surprised how easy it is to sweep a full team of legendaries with TR.

Yeah, that's another thing I like about The Room - if you know how to use it, you can easilly destroy people using full-legendary teams who don't know what they're doing. Especially since Altaria and Mawile - my prefered Megas for The Room at this point in time - are part Fairy, and most of them have at least two Dragons and a Darkrai. The bigger and faster they are, the harder they fall, as they say.

Though I assume you run Trick on that Gardevoir so that you can use it on the last turn of The Room and outspeed at least one (non-Mega/Primal) thing on the opponent's team afterwards. Because that actually sounds like a half-decent idea. I think I might try that since I'm in the middle of building a Singles TR team... But I digress.

For some reason I feel obliged to respond to posts here about Trick Room. I dunno why.

 

[slate]

i play bulky offense and balance. i feel like offense affords you a lot more room for creativity than stall does, so playing with stall was never very fun for me. that being said, i used to play hail stall quite a bit in dpp/bw to moderate success (top ~30 on ladder).

weather-themed teams are fun but my favorite weathers to build around aren't very good in oras ou. the reason i probably don't like stall is that i tend to go for more mindless set-up teams because pokemon's more fun to me that way. spending an entire match outsmarting my opponent only to watch them get a lucky freeze or crit was infuriating growing up, and i realized after taking a ~3 year break from the game competitively that that sort of thing matters to me less with offense. if hax didn't exist i'd probably play more stall, but this is the world we live in.

 

[MrMeowPuss]

Yeah, that's another thing I like about The Room - if you know how to use it, you can easilly destroy people using full-legendary teams who don't know what they're doing. Especially since Altaria and Mawile - my prefered Megas for The Room at this point in time - are part Fairy, and most of them have at least two Dragons and a Darkrai. The bigger and faster they are, the harder they fall, as they say.

Though I assume you run Trick on that Gardevoir so that you can use it on the last turn of The Room and outspeed at least one (non-Mega/Primal) thing on the opponent's team afterwards. Because that actually sounds like a half-decent idea. I think I might try that since I'm in the middle of building a Singles TR team... But I digress.

For some reason I feel obliged to respond to posts here about Trick Room. I dunno why.

Before when I would very asually battle, I would always hate playing against legendaries because I thought they weren't beatable. After learning to use TR I realised they are actually quite easy to take down.

What I've actually been doing in doubles is starting with Multiscale Dragonite and Infernape, using Fake out to the bigger threat while Dragonite does DD, sweeping as many of his pokes as I can then once I lose the first two, I'll switch into Gardevoir for Trick room and someone bulky like Empoleon or Ampharos. Even on the last turn, my Gardevoir is slow due to that iron ball so I try to sweep as fast as I can.

I want to make a full trick room too, just trying decide who else to use.

 

[Wispy Willow]

Before when I would very asually battle, I would always hate playing against legendaries because I thought they weren't beatable. After learning to use TR I realised they are actually quite easy to take down.

What I've actually been doing in doubles is starting with Multiscale Dragonite and Infernape, using Fake out to the bigger threat while Dragonite does DD, sweeping as many of his pokes as I can then once I lose the first two, I'll switch into Gardevoir for Trick room and someone bulky like Empoleon or Ampharos. Even on the last turn, my Gardevoir is slow due to that iron ball so I try to sweep as fast as I can.

I want to make a full trick room too, just trying decide who else to use.

Eh, it all depends on player skill and Pokémon quality I guess. Though if someone actually knew what they were doing with said Legendaries then it might be a bit harder.

Well, that's a good strategy as long as your opponent doesn't have a Froslass with a Focus Sash I guess. Oh, and I beleive I suggested given Gardevoir Trick to get rid of the Iron Ball on the final turn of The Room and outspeed something at least, but then you'd be sacrificing a moveslot so I don't know if you really want to do that.

Oh, and I have a few suggestions for a full TR team. Not necesserilly a perfect guide, but it's something at least.

Aromatisse, which can set up The Room without being Taunted by annoying Thundurus or Whimsicotts thanks to Aroma Veil.
Hitmontop, who can support with Intimidate, Wide Guard, Quick Guard and Fake Out or actually do a decent amount of damage with Technician-boosted Mach Punches.
Any TR user who can learn Destiny Bond (such as Gourgeist or Mega Banette), which pretty much guarentees another usage of The Room if the 'mon in question doesn't die first.
Chandelure, an incredibly powerful Special Attacker that, while being a little on the faster side for Trick Room and a tad frail, can deal out large amounts of damage with Heat Wave and Shadow Ball or even re-set The Room if need be.
Conkeldurr, a hard-hitting tank that, should it have Guts, doesn't care about being Burned.
Ferrothorn, a tank that can be very hard to get rid of if the opponent doesn't have a Fire or Fighting type but can still deal out an incredible amount of damage if it's allowed to get off a Gyro Ball or two after it's Cursed a few times (though Mega Steelix could fill this role if you decide to use a Sand Room varient).
Cresselia, an increbly bulky TR setter/support and a staple of TR teams in VGC for a while now.
And Mega Camerupt, a good Special Attacker that can do serious damage if there isn't a Water type on the field and can activate a Chandelure's Flash Fire with a Lava Plume.
Or you could disguise a Zoroark as your TR setter to fool the opponent or something.

...Though I have a feeling that, should we continue this conversation, then we should do so in V/PMs since I will probably go on like this in future and I don't want to subject anyone more then necessary to my ramblings.

 

[Zexy]

Hyper offense; guess I'm too impatient for anything else

I see no problem in a team of 6 sweepers; although they can be fast or set-up a Swords Dance or two. No further.

 

[Alexey]

I like to say that I prefer HO.
That is, however, a lie, because whenever I build something, it invariably turns into bulky offense or even balance, because I always think "Shit, I need a switch-in for [x]"
Then I end up with a breaker, a revenge killer, and a bunch of fat mons.
Also doesn't help that I can do defensive synergy, but suck major league ass at building (or utilizing, for that matter) any kind of offensive synergy. I can kind of do redundancy, but then I end up having no switch-ins for [x].
Another flaw in my building is that I never have goddamn stallbreakers. I have wallbreakers, but never stallbreakers. And my teams are usually walled by Mew.

 

[Slife]

Offense has always been the style that I'm most comfortable with and the one I have the most fun playing. Although stall may theoretically lead to a greater chance of success, I can't bring myself to play through those long battles. Personally, I'd rather lose and get time to play more games than carry out a 60+ turn guaranteed win (even then nothing is ever really guaranteed in Pokemon as long as RNG exists). That said I can understand why stall is valued for laddering and tournaments. Additionally, whether it's a good thing or not, Battle Spot doesn't see much stall usage because of the battle timer and slower turns in general.

VoltTurn is a fun strategy to use because it lets me keep up the momentum and usually involves high-stakes decision making and prediction. With my hyper offensive play, stacking hazard entries is crucial and I like to throw in some niche tech moves to nab unexpected KO.

Weather allows for some interesting strategies as well. I like how Sand and Rain teams are able to put on a ton of offensive pressure, and Mega-Charizard Y in the sun is absurdly powerful. Weather wars end up being pretty common in weather dominated metagames like BW OU and VGC 2016, and winning the weather war becomes sort of a battle within a battle. I'd be nice to see Generation VII do something to help out Hail's viability. Pokemon with abilities like Tapu Koko's also make me wonder if "terrain" moves can become something akin to weather in the future.

What I like about Trick Room is how it literally turns the speed tiers upside down and allows for a completely new way to dominate the speed control game. It's also nice how it gives slower Pokemon like Reuniculus, Bronzong, and certain megas a new opportunity to shine. TR has the potential to overrun unsuspecting offensive teams that aren't prepared for it, but the setup required for TR makes it much more effective in formats outside of singles. I'm definitely looking to try out some more strategies with TR in the future.