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I ATTAC

8 (15.4%)

I PROTECC

6 (11.5%)

Waiting on the third one

2 (3.8%)

Waiting on the third AND fourth one

1 (1.9%)

GET WELL SOON ZYGARDE

5 (9.6%)

I am a concientous objector and abstain from taking up arms

30 (57.7%)

Total Members Voted: 51

[Cthulhu]

I almost exclusively play pokemon on showdown, havent touched the games since x/y

At least when I played the meta was pretty wide, there were a few standouts but you could play pretty much anything.  I got pretty far in the rankings with a slaking, widely considered the worst pokemon in the game.

The tier system also means you can pick a lower meta that bans the more popular pokemon, though lower levels tend to be less balanced.  Its tempting to drop down to RU or NU so you can play with a wider set, but more than the primary OU the lower ranks are dominated by the has-beens and almost-weres, like moltres who is only in lower ranks because there's pokemon that do the same job but better

Im mad because slaking isnt in s/s

[MagmaMcFry]

Calling it now, there's gonna be a category in Showdown for just the Pokemon missing from S/S.

[scourge728]

IIRC the staff already have plans for it

[MrRoboto75]

Im mad because slaking isnt in s/s

Slaking is loafing around!

[Telgin]

I've got no idea what slaking is like in the game it was introduced in, but it has one of the stupid highest CP in Pokemon Go.  Of course, its fast attack does literally nothing and it can't be taught another move, so maybe it really does suck.

[Mini]

In the mainline games Slaking has Truant, which stops you from attacking every second turn. Fortunately it still counts as a turn (Hyper Beam has a recharge turn where you can't do anything which conveniently overlaps) but even still getting one move for your opponent's two is very hard to do well with.

[Folly]

I caved and pre-ordered Shield at the last second, despite not even having a Switch. I went with Amazon's free shipping which normally takes more than a week, but they were nice enough to overnight it anyway, so it should arrive today. I guess I'll have a game I'm unable to play taunting me for a few weeks until the Switch goes on sale this Black Friday.

[Rolan7]

One of my GO Slakings (pretty sure it's the Yawn/Body Slam one with my highest CP) charges very quickly, which makes it a bit less "bursty".  That's generally a good thing compared to overkilling with hyper beam, but it turned out to have another use:  Using up protect shields in PVP.  This is particularly useful against the Team Rocket *leaders*, who are already hard as balls but also remembered how to use shields.  This beefy slacking goes out first and doesn't do much damage, but triggers both their shields.

Take that with a grain of salt though, I've only beat one once and on the fourth attempt.  I was facing Cliff who had Meowth, Flygon, Tyrannitar.  "Rock type" my ass.  I tried Sierra last night who consistently used dark types, so in short I really need to focus-up a few fighting types.  It's tough though, it takes exceptional amounts of stardust to level up high-level pokemon.

...Honestly my best bet is probably the community day, particularly since it's Chimchar.  I could reallly use some top-tier fire AND fighting.  (I have very high-level Flareons but, like Jolteons, they're too frail to hold up in these fights - regardless of type advantage or listed CP).  I had the most luck with Metagross in that Cliff fight.  I think his Tyrannitar was using rock and my Metagross used steel, and I got lucky.  You're supposed to need type advantage to overcome their *ridiculously* overleveled pokemon, but Metagross's pure defense gives it the survivability to actually charge-attack a few times.

[Telgin]

Yeah, I tried one of the Team Rocket leader battles and hahano that wasn't going to happen.  I'll probably beat the quest eventually, but it's going to be a long time before I have pokemon that are strong enough and of the right types.  I've generally just focused on completing my pokedex and not bothered with powering up pokemon, and that's what I get.

On the subject of Sword and Shield, apparently Walmart is running a deal where you can get them for $10 off today, but only in physical stores and while supplies last.  That's a shame since I didn't plan to buy it on launch day, partly because I'm waiting on reviews since I've been burned on day one launches before, and partly because I wanted to get it around the same time as my brother later this month.

[Rolan7]

Re: GO, powering up Pokemon is generally not worthwhile anyway.  It's more important to gain levels yourself, since that caps the internal level of your pokemon.  The CP gauge shows how close to that cap they are - as you gain levels, they'll appear to lose progress.

My brother started playing a couple of weeks ago and while Team Rocket does seem to scale, it's not nearly enough.  Particularly since he hasn't had the absurd boon of a community day, which (around here) gives you so many of a good pokemon that you'll find a couple with three stars and nearly maxed CP.

What about the Venusaurs that I caught in the first (I think?) community day?  Not really competitive now.  For one thing IVs couldn't be rated (without tools/math), but I couldn't catch any higher than my level back then.  That's why personal levels are the highest priority.

And hey, filling the pokedex is good for XP, and actually fun!  The biggest strats besides that are doing legendary raids (joining those pokemaniacs shiny-hunting Regigas or whatever, you don't have to have a strong team) or doing a lot of the 12-candy evolutions like weedle/caterpie/pidgey.  I think grinding evolutions is my main experience source other than raiding, and you can wait until you have a lucky egg to get double credit for them.

Around 30-35 level progression starts getting crazy slow though.  I was 36 for months, and 37 isn't really much different.  Powering up my best pokemon takes so much stardust that I rarely do it, even when I have the candy.  To power up the weakest pokemon I actually consider competitive, a 3177 dragonite, takes 5000 stardust.  That's "only" 50 catches I guess, not counting weather boost, but bleh.

Doesn't help that trading any actually-special pokemon costs thousands of stardust too, and I want to share with my friends.  They often miss community days because, you know, they're in the middle of the day?  And apparently there's this thing called "work"?  And I guess it just sucks to be them, as far as GO is concerned, because there's no way I'd have a chance if I'd missed Beldum day.

oh and I guess you're double SOL if you can't play in an urban area :/  I still wish there were rewards for, you know... hiking.  Compared to doing circles in an air-conditioned mall full of free items, I mean.

Edit:  Holy crap I just checked the stardust cost to let my Metagross learn a second charge move (psychic hopefully): 75000, AKA 750 captures.  looool.  I mean, that's turned out super useful on my Tyrannitar (Crunch/Stone Edge), but not *that* useful...

[Iduno]

Doesn't help that trading any actually-special pokemon costs thousands of stardust too, and I want to share with my friends.  They often miss community days because, you know, they're in the middle of the day?  And apparently there's this thing called "work"?  And I guess it just sucks to be them, as far as GO is concerned, because there's no way I'd have a chance if I'd missed Beldum day.

Community days don't last all you know...day?

[Rolan7]

Oof no, it's a 3-hour period.  It used to be 2PM-5PM here on the east coast, but IIRC it happened simultaneously across all American time zones which was silly (then an "Asian" time, etc, heh).  Nowadays they just use local time by time zone, and it's 11AM to 2PM.

Probably the best 3-hour window I can think of, but yeah.  At least it's around lunchtime for people who do have to work, but my housemate has loaned me his phone a couple times.  Technically cheating but reasonable in my book (a lot of people multiphone a lot worse, like capturing gyms or doing raids).

There are multi-day events like double candy or double walking rate.  We got like a couple weeks of both in October, along with tons of ghost pokemon, that was cool (:  Hatched so many eggs~

Anyway yeah, Chimchar tomorrow from 11-2PM!  I'm pretty stoked.

Edit:  And oh gosh it's a *quarter* walking distance to hatch eggs during the event itself!  They do this to sell extra incubators... and it works (though I rely on the slow freemium currency from holding gyms).  Everybody has 1 inexhaustible incubator anyway.  Though apparently the event will be flooded with 2km eggs (so .5km eggs) which just give more chimchars, which is both kinda lame and a way to get *lots* of candy and also a source of stardust from hatching.

[Bumber]

My Pokemon Sword arrived with a Sobble plush, which I happen to be choosing as my starter. Shame that Grookey's final evolution ended up so lame. They're all kind of a letdown, really.

[scourge728]

I mean, that basically sums up these games imo

[MrRoboto75]

is it a fire/fighting starter