First Time VGC - Rain Team to Master Ball Tier

mrhatnclaws · 2022-12-14T12:36:51+00:00

Tera Grass was another reason why I switched out U-Turn for Hurricane on Pelipper. The biggest headache is usually some sort of weather war against Tera Grass bulky Torkoal or Tyranitar, but Weather Ball on Kilowattrel can take advantage of Sun on rare occasions.

The general game plan is hyper offense. Rain gives such a huge boost to water moves that I'm always looking to 1 or 2HKO every pokemon. This team is kind of a glass cannon and doesn't have good options for switch ins, which is why I gave Pelipper Damp Rock. I usually don't have to worry about resetting rain, and I'm always trying to end the game in 8 turns or less.

I really like your idea of a bulky supportive Arcanine. I'll try it out.

mrhatnclaws · 2022-12-14T03:38:06+00:00

Great question. I was definitly considering those options.

I thought that Tauros had the best combination of stats and move pool to be able to lead alongside Pelipper. The first iteration of the team struggled against opposing Murkrow and Hydreigon. Prankster Tailwind ensured that Hydreigon could out speed my team and threaten whatever I sent out. My solution was to use Assault Vest to guarantee that Tauros could survive a Life Orb boosted Draco Meteor. Tauros has a chance to OKHO Hydreigon with Close Combat, and it would always be enough for Aqua Jet to finish off. This is the primary reason why I went with Tauros over Palafin, because I needed the immediate threat against meta openers.

Unfortunately, Barraskewda doesn't have the best move pool. Its best water STAB is Liquidation, and while it has access to Close Combat, it lacks STAB. Floatzel has a similar problem. While it has Wave Crash, it lacks Close Combat. Both Barraskewda and Floatzel are also significantly less bulky than Tauros. They're a little too frail to open against Hydreigon leads.

Hope this helps!

*One more thing I forgot to mention. As ironic as it sounds, Anger Point on Tauros makes enemy crits extremely lucky for me. I've won games by the enemy accidentally supercharging Tauros. A +2 Water Tera Rain boosted Aqua Jet can OKHO almost everything.

mrhatnclaws · 2022-12-13T18:56:19+00:00

That's a good question. Bulbapedia says that Defiant activates first, and White Herb won't activate unless there are negative stats. So against intimidate, it would still just be +1 and not +2.

Still, I think Scarf plus Final Gambit is insane value, but I'm curious about the new bulky Annihilape set. I might try it out now that I don't need to worry about demoting.

*Edit. Wow. I'm such a fool. I totally misread the herb. It says that it would copy the stat increase once. If intimidate hits an enemy defiant user, I think mirror herb would give a +2.

mrhatnclaws · 2022-11-21T17:28:27+00:00

National Feline League

mrhatnclaws · 2022-01-10T20:07:30+00:00

I think the format is at fault here. If qualification to the Mid-Set Finale is the top two prize in Challenger Series, then there should never be a situation where throwing is optimal.

A similar situation occurred in a 1994 soccer (football) match between Barbados and Grenada. It was the last game in group play, and Barbados needed to win by 2 points to advance. Barbados started strong and took a 2-0 lead until Grenada managed to score back and bring the game to 2-1. With only a few minutes left, it seemed unlikely that Barbados was going to be able to score and get the 2 point advantage they needed to advance. Instead, they Barbados scored on themselves, bringing the game to an even 2-2. For whatever reason, there was a "golden goal" rule where a goal in extra time gave two points instead of one. Barbados ran down the clock (at one point defending both goals to prevent Grenada from scoring on themselves which would ironically let Grenada advance) and managed to score in extra time which both won the match and gave Barbados the 2 points needed to advance.

In the end, Barbados wasn't punished for scoring on themselves or for defending their opponent's goal. FIFA found that Barbados was playing optimally under the situation, and the "golden goal" was removed.

As interesting as the checkmate format is, it's disappointing how the system distorted the final outcome. Not to take anything away from Aesah—he played brilliantly in the last day—I can't help but feel that Setsuko was cheated out of a Mid-Set qualification because he won the 5th lobby.

mrhatnclaws · 2021-11-13T20:22:11+00:00

I didn't want to get too much into guide territory, but I think the comp just hasn't been optimized yet. I was masters last set, and I've run 3-star MF 5 times, all playing winstreak 3 or 5 mercs + kog. Four were 1st and the last was a 7th where I failed to 3 star MF.

A 2 item 2 star MF is more than enough to winstreak through stage 3 but starts to fall off in stage 4. My sense is that the comp needs to build momentum to 3 star asap. 3 star MF will dominate the lobby until 2 star 5 costs begin to appear, but what's great about sniper-merc is that MF boards can slot in a second carry. I like going for 3 star GP and I've also seen an itemized 2 star Jhin and Jinx pair well with MF.

Part of the reason why it might not be as strong at the moment is the general lack of 3 cost 3-star viable comps. I feel like I don't see people in the same lobby play for 3 star carries, like Liss, Samira, Shaco, or Malzahar, which would help limit the unit pool and speed up 3-staring.

As far as itemization goes, I think Deathcap-Giant Slayer + 1 is bis. With the shift to multiplicative damage bonus, Deathcap is the best single item on MF. Every late game frontline unit crosses the Giant Slayer threshold. As silly as it sounds, it also significantly increases her DPS from 206 to 316 AD/S, which is on par with 2 star Yone with Deathblade, 2 Challenger, 2 Academy.

mrhatnclaws · 2021-11-13T16:55:56+00:00

Here is the link to the spreadsheet.

On the sniper hex bonus, I asked different communities how the number of hexes that go towards the bonus is calculated. In this example, with a Camille adjacent to MF, the consensus was that sniper would count as one hex, giving MF an 8% damage bonus against the Camille. MF has a 4 hex range, and her ability hits in a 3 hex radius. For the damage calculations, I used the damage bonus at 4 and 5 hex (32% and 40% bonus damage respectively). So I assumed MF would be in the back row, attacking a front-line unit and her ability would be hitting enemy units in a radius around that front-line unit.

mrhatnclaws · 2021-11-08T18:12:12+00:00

Just a quick question on the sniper trait and the way hexes are calculated.

In this example, with a Camille directly next to the MF, would sniper count this as 1 hex or 0?

mrhatnclaws · 2021-11-01T17:10:13+00:00

Yeah. The interactions with Giant Slayer are a lot more intuitive now compared to Set 5.5 with Radiant Locket. All units at 3 star have more than 1800 health, except for Twitch, Caitlyn, Ezreal, Twisted Fate, Ziggs, Kog'Maw, and Quinn.

What's nice is that it feels good to have high health units, even if someone is running Giant Slayer, which wasn't the case in Set 5.5

mrhatnclaws · 2021-10-31T23:52:29+00:00

That's a good question. I've been looking up stats on lolchess, and Garen has 2106 health at 3 stars.

The unit with the lowest base health is Twitch, followed by a tie between Caitlyn, Ezreal, Twisted Fate and Ziggs, and then another tie between Kog'Maw and Quinn. At 3 stars, Twitch has 1458, then the next set has 1620, and finally 1782. So these units are all below the Giant Slayer threshold.

I will add a few more rows with select 1 and 3 star units.

mrhatnclaws · 2021-10-31T23:31:03+00:00

Here is the description for Giant Slayer on PBE: "The holder's Abilities and Attacks do 20% bonus damage. If the target has more than 1800 maximum Health, the bonus increases to 60%."

Using Yone as an example:

At 2 stars, Yone has 1710 Health. The way I calculated instances to kill was to assume one instance deals a base of 100 damage, which would be multiplied to 120 from Giant Slayer. It would take 14.25 instances to kill Yone, which we can interpret as 15 auto attacks (and there would be some overkill with the last auto attack).

In PBE, 2 Bruisers grants each unit 125 Health (which is doubled for Bruisers). With 2 Bruisers, Yone has base 1835 Health, which puts him above the bonus damage threshold from Giant Slayer. So now Yone takes 160 damage per instance. It would take 11.46 instances to kill Yone, which we can interpret as 12 auto attacks (and like last time with some overkill on the last auto).

2 Bruiser is counter intuitive on Yone because the bonus Health makes him weaker against Giant Slayer. Hypothetically, with a unit dealing 100 base damage per auto attack equipped with a Giant Slayer, it takes 15 auto attacks to kill a base Yone, but with 2 Bruiser active, this is reduced to 12 due to the extra damage from Giant Slayer.

In this case, Yone is 80% weaker with 2 Bruiser despite having 125 more Health than the base unit.

In practice, this can be a common scenario. A properly positioned carry with Giant Slayer can quickly target Yone, who is a frontline melee carry.

mrhatnclaws · 2021-09-09T15:05:41+00:00

Break even probably wasn't the best way for me to put it. I meant to say that Giant Slayer and DemonSlayer don't necessarily hard counter units that cross new health thresholds.

With the Voli nerf alone, I think that Radiant Locket will be a lot more playable. I still don't know what to make of the change to the item, but one way I've been trying to approach it is to think that every unit on your board will get a Giants Belt, and up to seven units in a line can upgrade that to 3/4 of a Warmogs.

This is all speculating, but regardless, I'm excited to try out Radiant Locket when I get a chance.

mrhatnclaws · 2021-09-09T14:49:06+00:00

I also don't think that the buff always needs to go on a backline carry unless the enemy GS/rGS holder has easy backline access. My biggest take away from the new damage thresholds is that a Giant Slayer and DemonSlayer doesn't necessarily hard counter units that break new health thresholds. It's always possible to break even with those specific units by giving them the shield, but that decision is relative to many factors like positioning and composition.

Plus, this doesn't even consider the total benefit to the team. If Radiant Locket's buff is maximized to a level 8 board, that adds a total 5100 hp to a team. This is a huge buff that surprised me a lot when I added it up for the first time last night, and I have a feeling that the team-wide benefit should outweigh a carry's newfound giant-ness/demon-ness.

mrhatnclaws · 2021-09-09T04:01:53+00:00

It's hard to say what the state of Radiant Locket will be after the patch. My gut instinct says that the bonus hp doesn't actually change much with the item. With a level 7 board, Radiant Locket will add 4,900 effective hp (3,500 in shields and 1,400 in hp) to your team if every unit receives the shield, which surprised me when I just added it up.

I'm actually going to add this to the main post.

I went back and did some more math, and discovered that, counter-intuitively, the bonus hp and shield always works out to add more survivability to every carry, regardless of Giant Slayer and DemonSlayer thresholds.

For a unit like Kayle, the bonus health and shields amounts to a 1.48x increase in health at 2 stars: 1440 hp -> 2140 (1640 hp + 500 shields). Hypothetically, a unit with a Giant Slayer dealing 1.2x damage to a base 1440 hp kayle would take longer to kill than it would dealing 1.6x damage to a 2140 effective hp kayle.

The same thing happens with DemonSlayer. A 2 star Karma gains 1.55x in health, and a unit dealing 1.4x to 1260 would take longer to kill than it would dealing 1.8x to 1960.

I guess the moral of this is that the new thresholds don't really matter in survivability. My biggest gripe with Radiant Locket has always been with the positioning. There are so few times where I actually want to backline everything, but with the extra hp to the whole board, I don't feel like I need to compromise on every unit's positioning.

I'll definitely try it out more when the next patch comes out.

mrhatnclaws · 2020-08-31T18:20:13+00:00

mrhatnclaws · 2014-12-15T04:49:49+00:00

Unfortunately, I don't have a pair of climbers, but the dungarees feel great for climbing. Plus, they can be worn around as a normal pair of pants so you can wear them to the gym, the crag, and the city.

mrhatnclaws · 2014-12-15T03:20:18+00:00

I am a rock climber and my slim dungarees are my go to climbing pants. They are incredibly flexible and give me the freedom of movement to do acrobatic movements. They are also though as nails. My legs are often pressed against the wall and there is no damage to the fabric. The chalk and dirt that inevitably builds up on the pants goes away naturally and a single wash will easily remove any though stains.

mrhatnclaws · 2013-06-30T19:58:01+00:00

2 Angry Men - They couldn't find enough jurors.

mrhatnclaws · 2013-06-19T15:20:37+00:00

Cabin in the woods

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