Stat Switch [Azumarill+Regice Banned]

tbh Gengar is completely useless against Breloom (barring Will O Wisping it before its Toxic Orb activates or Knock Offing it beforehand) and Taunting Breloom does nothing to stop its passive healing, huge bulk, and excellent firepower.
 

canno

formerly The Reptile
I too feel like Breloom might need a look at this point. There are counters, such as Talonflame, but once its counters are gone or so weak it can Vacuum Wave them out of existence or in a position to be Spored and then taken down, it is alarmingly capable of sweeping entire teams, with it being alarmingly difficult to actually take it down between its combination of astonishing bulk and Poison Heal. You basically have to be a hard hitting Physical attacker either hitting on its double weakness to Flying or have even more Attack while picking on some other weakness -I have literally never seen any Special attack OHKO Breloom from a dead start, even when it's stuff like Mega Scizor using its 150 Special Attack and Technician boost with Hidden Power Flying! Meanwhile it can use Protect to stall for health, tank an alarming number of Special attacks generally, and then hit back for plenty good damage -and finish you off with Vacuum Wave, so that for instance Carbink 2HKOing it with Moon Blast only means Breloom cannot 100% safely switch in except as a revenge switch. On a revenge switch, Carbink removes 60-70% of Breloom's health, survives an Energy Ball or a Giga Drain (Undoing most of its work right there!) via Sturdy, and then Breloom Vacuum Waves it to be done with it.

I feel this is particularly important if people push for Regice to be banned -Regice is one of a very small number of reliable counters to Breloom, able to OHKO it with Ice Punch every time, and by far the most widely useful one. (Mega Charizard Y OHKOs with a Flare Blitz, but that double weakness to Stealth Rock among other issues is going to reduce its popularity) So a meta in which Regice is banned may well be a meta in which Breloom must be banned.
Er, I wouldn't call Regice an "answer" to it, considering

4 SpA Technician Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Regice: 284-336 (78 - 92.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

the only ones that can "reasonably" (read: get 2HKO'd) take a Vaccum Wave is Assault Vest and Max/Max+ SpDef. Not saying that those aren't effective sets (well, assault vest anyways - max/max+ spdef is bad imho), but I'm pretty sure Life Orb and other items are much more common than Assault Vest, and even Assault Vest is flimsy as best, considering

0 SpA Technician Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Regice: 188-224 (51.6 - 61.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Technician Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Regice: 252-296 (69.2 - 81.3%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

so yea, Regice is barely a check at best, so I don't see how Regice can be considered a "counter".
 
Er, I wouldn't call Regice an "answer" to it, considering

4 SpA Technician Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Regice: 284-336 (78 - 92.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

the only ones that can "reasonably" (read: get 2HKO'd) take a Vaccum Wave is Assault Vest and Max/Max+ SpDef. Not saying that those aren't effective sets (well, assault vest anyways - max/max+ spdef is bad imho), but I'm pretty sure Life Orb and other items are much more common than Assault Vest, and even Assault Vest is flimsy as best, considering

0 SpA Technician Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Regice: 188-224 (51.6 - 61.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Technician Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Regice: 252-296 (69.2 - 81.3%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

so yea, Regice is barely a check at best, so I don't see how Regice can be considered a "counter".
Technician Vacuum Wave Breloom is not a thing, as Vacuum Wave is a Gen 4 tutor and Technician is its Hidden Ability.
 

canno

formerly The Reptile
Technician Vacuum Wave Breloom is not a thing, as Vacuum Wave is a Gen 4 tutor and Technician is its Hidden Ability.
Whoops. How could I have forgotten when I had the same problem when making my team with Breloom ;_;

Point still stands though - Regice is in no way a counter when it gets 2HKO'd by it without any investment

0 SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Regice: 188-224 (51.6 - 61.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Assault Vest does avoid the 2HKO from no investment, but I still wouldn't call it a counter when it can really only switch in once - it's a check at best.

252+ SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Regice: 168-198 (46.1 - 54.3%) -- 49.2% chance to 2HKO
0 SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Regice: 126-150 (34.6 - 41.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Doesn't help that Regice is extremely easy to wear down to a point where Vaccum Wave kills.
 
Whoops. How could I have forgotten when I had the same problem when making my team with Breloom ;_;

Point still stands though - Regice is in no way a counter when it gets 2HKO'd by it without any investment

0 SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Regice: 188-224 (51.6 - 61.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Assault Vest does avoid the 2HKO from no investment, but I still wouldn't call it a counter when it can really only switch in once - it's a check at best.

252+ SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Regice: 168-198 (46.1 - 54.3%) -- 49.2% chance to 2HKO
0 SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Regice: 126-150 (34.6 - 41.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Doesn't help that Regice is extremely easy to wear down to a point where Vaccum Wave kills.
Wait, I know nobody uses Celebi in Stat Switch, but might it be able to counter Breloom? Immunity to Spore, threatens with Nasty Plot and Psychic (or Swords Dance and Zen Headbutt but why would you use Physical Celebi anyway), and vaguely tanky-ish even in Stat Switch. Weak to the half of the meta that isn't Vacuum Wave spam, though.
 
Wait, I know nobody uses Celebi in Stat Switch, but might it be able to counter Breloom? Immunity to Spore, threatens with Nasty Plot and Psychic (or Swords Dance and Zen Headbutt but why would you use Physical Celebi anyway), and vaguely tanky-ish even in Stat Switch. Weak to the half of the meta that isn't Vacuum Wave spam, though.
Breloom can't do much to defensive Grass types in general since they are immune to Spore and Leech Seed, resist Giga Drain, and don't take that much from Vacuum Wave. Shaymin-Sky is a good counter to Breloom unless Breloom is running Sludge Bomb (which I did run into once). Tangrowth can also be a good answer, but unfortunately it has to run Aerial Ace / HP Flying / Poison Jab to do anything to Breloom. Serperior with a Coil / Calm Mind set could work too, but I haven't tried this so I don't know if it is any good. Gengar can't do anything to Breloom, but a Rest set might be able to PP stall Breloom. Inferape doesn't like Spore or Leech Seed, but takes Breloom's attacks pretty well and can do a lot of damage with Flare Blitz. I think Breloom may still be banworthy, but there are some good Pokemon out there which can stop it.
 
252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Breloom: 446-528 (96.1 - 113.7%) -- 75% chance to OHKO

Only answer I've been able to find to reliably shut him down. Trouble is, it can't switch in. Only thing that doesn't care much about his attacks is....Honchkrow maybe? Could set up on him with Calm Mind or Nasty Plot. Regi bait though. I'm not sure on Breloom. I think it could be good enough to warrant a ban. Not many real switch-ins for it
 
The way I handle loom is by having multiple attackers strong enough to take them down. With a combo of Gallade, Sylveon, and Darm, I'm capable of tanking a sleep with one of them and KOing it with one of the other two. It's kind of overkill, but these are all great mons that serve multiple purposes and can take on teams with a bit of luck.
 
Grass types don't fear Breloom
Hidden Power Flying, even aside from Sludge Bomb. I run it on my Breloom just to counter other Breloom, and it incidentally trivializes Grass types in general, and also has all kinds of secondary benefits, and since the only things that resist it are Rock types (Vacuum Wave/Energy Ball/Giga Drain), Steel types (Vacuum Wave) and Electric types (zero threat to Breloom in all cases that I'm aware of) it provides excellent neutral coverage that allows Breloom to take on almost everything in the game. There's a few Pokemon like Thundurus that might be able to deal with Breloom (But I haven't seen either Thundurus variant in the meta and Carbink horribly murders them regardless) by virtue of resisting all that, but I highly doubt it -especially since most of the classic offensive threats have lost their preferred offense and it's very rare to see replacements. (That is, there's a lot more Fire types that lose their Attack and/or Special Attack for Speed or defensive stats than there are Fire types that gain Attack by sacrificing some other stat -Mega Houndoom is one exception I can name and hey, Vacuum Wave)

The way I handle loom is by having multiple attackers strong enough to take them down. With a combo of Gallade, Sylveon, and Darm, I'm capable of tanking a sleep with one of them and KOing it with one of the other two. It's kind of overkill, but these are all great mons that serve multiple purposes and can take on teams with a bit of luck.
That sounds like the definition of over-centralizing or outright broken. You need multiple other Pokemon to have any chance of taking it down? And Gallade isn't a counter to Hidden Power Flying Breloom by the way.

Leech Seed Breloom
I really really don't see why people run this. Breloom gets plenty of healing just from Poison Heal, if you want to heal better Protect is probably more effective, and the damage is pretty pointless when Breloom has such an effective offensive capacity in general and access to Giga Drain. My own preferred set of Vacuum Wave/Energy Ball/Hidden Power Flying/Spore basically only ever dies because I make a crucial mistake -when I'm not just playing stupidly it's obnoxiously difficult to kill and Dragonite is one of the only Pokemon I've seen that can properly wall it. (And it's not very popular, with good reason: 134 Attack becoming 134 Speed isn't very thrilling when stuff like Carbink is running around outspeeding and annihilating you) And honestly Energy Ball really is probably sub-optimal compared to Giga Drain, since Giga Drain lets it heal off Carbink's Moon Blast and similar.

Er, I wouldn't call Regice an "answer" to it, considering

4 SpA Technician Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Regice: 284-336 (78 - 92.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

the only ones that can "reasonably" (read: get 2HKO'd) take a Vaccum Wave is Assault Vest and Max/Max+ SpDef. Not saying that those aren't effective sets (well, assault vest anyways - max/max+ spdef is bad imho), but I'm pretty sure Life Orb and other items are much more common than Assault Vest, and even Assault Vest is flimsy as best, considering

0 SpA Technician Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Regice: 188-224 (51.6 - 61.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Technician Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Regice: 252-296 (69.2 - 81.3%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

so yea, Regice is barely a check at best, so I don't see how Regice can be considered a "counter".
In a more fully developed meta no, Breloom is not countered by Regice -but most people assume their Breloom will OHKO Regice (Which it never will even off one Stealth Rock since Technician is not possible to combine with Vacuum Wave and is stupid anyway because Poison Heal Breloom is vastly superior) while Regice cleanly OHKOs it with one Ice Punch, allowing Regice to revenge switch in and either KO it or, if they're savvy, cause them to switch to something else Regice can dent and possibly KO. (Also note that your second calc shows that incompetent bulk investment on Regice still provides a 50% chance of surviving after Stealth Rock, without an Assault Vest since no Technician and you're not running Choice Specs over Toxic Orb, while Regice would make much more sense to invest into Special Defense and get more durability that way)

And why are your calcs investing into HP? Regice would survive better with Special Defense maxed and no HP.
 
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I agree that Breloom probably should go. It's a very bulky pokemon that has a way past any potential counter to it (spore, hp flying), and can easily break through counterless teams.
 
tbh Gengar is completely useless against Breloom (barring Will O Wisping it before its Toxic Orb activates or Knock Offing it beforehand) and Taunting Breloom does nothing to stop its passive healing, huge bulk, and excellent firepower.
uh, Sludge Bomb 2hitko'd Breloom on my Haunter.
considering Gengar has a little more sp.atk I'd imagine it'd be the same story lol.

TheBurgerKing99 said:
Hi, sorry for double post, but I would like to announce that Snaquaza has started a council of Me, Ghoul King, and himself. The first thing the council is looking at is Regice, and we should reach a conclusion on it soon. Thanks :)
The guy that denies Life Orb Regice as a thing is on council. RIP
 
uh, Sludge Bomb 2hitko'd Breloom on my Haunter.
considering Gengar has a little more sp.atk I'd imagine it'd be the same story lol.



The guy that denies Life Orb Regice as a thing is on council. RIP
Not saying Assault Vest Regice doesn't work, just that Life Orb Regice very definitely does work, very well in fact.
 
uh, Sludge Bomb 2hitko'd Breloom on my Haunter.
considering Gengar has a little more sp.atk I'd imagine it'd be the same story lol.
I find this extraordinarily unlikely off a Special Attack of 45 against 130/130 bulk. Calcing it with Choice Specs

252+ SpA Choice Specs Haunter Sludge Bomb vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Breloom: 204-242 (43.9 - 52.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Poison Heal

I can only conclude either your memory is faulty or you are ignorant of the meta on a fundamental level.
 
I find this extraordinarily unlikely off a Special Attack of 45 against 130/130 bulk. Calcing it with Choice Specs

252+ SpA Choice Specs Haunter Sludge Bomb vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Breloom: 204-242 (43.9 - 52.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Poison Heal

I can only conclude either your memory is faulty or you are ignorant of the meta on a fundamental level.
Is it possible that there might be a glitch where Eviolite Haunter keeps it's Sp.Atk? I don't know how it happened either, it wasn't a crit and the person I played against can attest to that.

FlameUser64 said:
Not saying Assault Vest Regice doesn't work, just that Life Orb Regice very definitely does work, very well in fact.
He said it wasn't viable. Lol.

Quote: I have enormous doubts about "common" and even greater doubts about "viable".
 
Here's something I've been using to counter most variants of breloom (besides sludge bomb):

shitty gimmick (Jumpluff)
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Acrobatics
- U-turn
- Sleep Powder
- Aromatherapy

4x resists grass stab, resists fighting stab, immune to leech seed and spore. Infiltrator lets it hit Breloom through subs. Jumpluff now has a respectable base 110 attack stat, but acrobatics is its only good flying stab. Also, it usually ohkos Breloom:

252+ Atk Jumpluff Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Breloom: 424-504 (91.3 - 108.6%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

If you predict Breloom to switch out, click u-turn and grab momentum. This thing is pretty much useless against teams that don't have breloom, but what teams don't run breloom lmao
 
Here's something I've been using to counter most variants of breloom (besides sludge bomb):

shitty gimmick (Jumpluff)
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Acrobatics
- U-turn
- Sleep Powder
- Aromatherapy

4x resists grass stab, resists fighting stab, immune to leech seed and spore. Infiltrator lets it hit Breloom through subs. Jumpluff now has a respectable base 110 attack stat, but acrobatics is its only good flying stab. Also, it usually ohkos Breloom:

252+ Atk Jumpluff Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Breloom: 424-504 (91.3 - 108.6%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

If you predict Breloom to switch out, click u-turn and grab momentum. This thing is pretty much useless against teams that don't have breloom, but what teams don't run breloom lmao
I would argue that Jumpluff is completely outclassed by Skymin
 
He said it wasn't viable. Lol.

Quote: I have enormous doubts about "common" and even greater doubts about "viable".
This was specifically in the context of you saying most common and most viable, and I still doubt that Life Orb is the most viable item for Regice. (I won't argue most common at this point in time, that would be ridiculous going by the ladder) Don't take quotes out of context.

Is it possible that there might be a glitch where Eviolite Haunter keeps it's Sp.Atk? I don't know how it happened either, it wasn't a crit and the person I played against can attest to that.
Unless you've got the replay, I'm unconvinced -I've not seen an error of that sort in my own play, nothing in the code would explain this result, and even if there's something weird where Eviolite is applying its boost to Special Attack because of stat swapping it still shouldn't be a big enough boost to achieve a 2HKO.
 

canno

formerly The Reptile
In a more fully developed meta no, Breloom is not countered by Regice -but most people assume their Breloom will OHKO Regice (Which it never will even off one Stealth Rock since Technician is not possible to combine with Vacuum Wave and is stupid anyway because Poison Heal Breloom is vastly superior) while Regice cleanly OHKOs it with one Ice Punch, allowing Regice to revenge switch in and either KO it or, if they're savvy, cause them to switch to something else Regice can dent and possibly KO. (Also note that your second calc shows that incompetent bulk investment on Regice still provides a 50% chance of surviving after Stealth Rock, without an Assault Vest since no Technician and you're not running Choice Specs over Toxic Orb, while Regice would make much more sense to invest into Special Defense and get more durability that way)

And why are your calcs investing into HP? Regice would survive better with Special Defense maxed and no HP.
I fixed my calcs because I'm a dummy a while ago. They still didn't look good for Regice. Also, assuming the opponent isn't savvy is not an indicator for anything basically, so I don't understand why it was brought up. However it looks like I need to fix my calcs again because I didn't know that. I just assumed that max HP (or 248 because muh odd HP) was better for general bulk (including Physical), but meh.

0 SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Regice: 128-152 (42.5 - 50.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Regice: 170-204 (56.4 - 67.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
0 SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Assault Vest Regice: 86-104 (28.5 - 34.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Assault Vest Regice: 116-138 (38.5 - 45.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Regice: 104-126 (28.5 - 34.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock (BEST SET 2016 seriously though I think it's not great or anything but it could be done due to its high natural speed and attack. Still kind of silly though, and would only exist to counter Breloom)

I still don't buy it though - Regice's best situation is to have an Assault Vest vs defensive Breloom, as any other situation leads to a 2HKO after SR (read: prior damage). This means that Regice simply cannot switch into Breloom, even with a Assault Vest vs Vaccum Wave (remember Regice has no way of healing that off unless you give it Wish Support), which is something that a counter should do. At best its a check to Breloom, and only really when it has an Assault Vest.
 
I fixed my calcs because I'm a dummy a while ago. They still didn't look good for Regice. Also, assuming the opponent isn't savvy is not an indicator for anything basically, so I don't understand why it was brought up. However it looks like I need to fix my calcs again because I didn't know that. I just assumed that max HP (or 248 because muh odd HP) was better for general bulk (including Physical), but meh.

0 SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Regice: 128-152 (42.5 - 50.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Regice: 170-204 (56.4 - 67.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
0 SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Assault Vest Regice: 86-104 (28.5 - 34.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Assault Vest Regice: 116-138 (38.5 - 45.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Breloom Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Regice: 104-126 (28.5 - 34.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock (BEST SET 2016 seriously though I think it's not great or anything but it could be done due to its high natural speed and attack. Still kind of silly though, and would only exist to counter Breloom)

I still don't buy it though - Regice's best situation is to have an Assault Vest vs defensive Breloom, as any other situation leads to a 2HKO after SR (read: prior damage). This means that Regice simply cannot switch into Breloom, even with a Assault Vest vs Vaccum Wave (remember Regice has no way of healing that off unless you give it Wish Support), which is something that a counter should do. At best its a check to Breloom, and only really when it has an Assault Vest.
That wasn't me that posted that, lol. Dunno how you managed to have someone else's quote in a quote tag referencing me. The posted you quoted was from Ghoul King.
 
I still don't buy it though - Regice's best situation is to have an Assault Vest vs defensive Breloom, as any other situation leads to a 2HKO after SR (read: prior damage). This means that Regice simply cannot switch into Breloom, even with a Assault Vest vs Vaccum Wave (remember Regice has no way of healing that off unless you give it Wish Support), which is something that a counter should do. At best its a check to Breloom, and only really when it has an Assault Vest.
My point was that I agree with you that in a Perfect World in which players always play somewhere very near optimally, no, Regice is not a counter or even a check to Breloom -at best it can be used to finish off Breloom once you've wiped out everything else so that it can't switch out, which is more than a depressing number of Pokemon can say. But against a surprising number of actual players who aren't low-ladder newbies it still actually works.
 

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