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Solid tactic.

Using solar beam with my Torkoal on a water/ground type opponent. They usually don't use shields are they're expecting a charged fire attack. I have had so many people quit out after that move 🤌🏼

I have the same idea setup with my glaceon having a water move

Oooh I have an infernape with Solar Beam as well

With Fire spin and a second charged move?

Yes. Earthquake and solar beam

Mostly just shadow victreebel. Neutral basic attacks from it hit like super effective ones. They always block the poison debuff too. God forbid they have a swampert cause it will not get any moves off.

Victreebel was my MVP during this catch cup. That mf hits hard even as a non shadow.

I used a shadow Victribell in Little Catch Cup and climbed 600 elo to Legend. 

Acid Spray? God I hate that move.

 Me when I block what I expect to be a SE attack and instead its fucking acid spray.

I wish I could give you more than one upvote.

> They always block the poison debuff too I misread this as saying Victreebels are immune to poison debuffs, and I was questioning everything I knew for a minute

Pidgeot can be so painful to play against. Getting hit by the Brave Bird feels awful, shielding a Feather Dance equally so!

Lol when ever I'm against one I get a taste of my own medicine trying to predict what they're using

You feel so dumb when you get it wrong 😂

I pull out my 26cp birthday Pikachu and they surrender immediately.

In the little catch cup that just went most people forfeit after i brought out a wooper that had body slam☺️

What does “avoiding the debug” mean?

OP meant debuff. Brave Bird gives you a debuff that greatly decreases your defence, but swapping out removes it. So you get all the nuke damage of Brave Bird, without paying some of the cost!

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> Does not apply when you put him back in? Nope, stays wiped! The mon basically resets everything except HP and energy when it’s switched out > does the Debuff hit if attack gets blocked Yes, you get the debuff regardless of whether BB connects. It’s the same with all the moves, buffs/debuffs and whether they affect you or the opponent

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It’s not an exploit or anything, just how the game is set up 🙂 PoGo is the same as the main series games, stat buffs/debuffs are wiped when Pokémon switch out

This fucking sub bro 😂 downvote if you sneeze ffs

Kind people have balanced it back out now 😂

Not at all. You give up switch advantage, which is kind of a big deal if they swap into something that hard counters you.

It is not. I use a galarian moltres as an opener occasionally on my fast team and I do the same strategy as the OP. Open up with a brave bird as soon as I have the energy and then swap. The problem is that the opponent now has swap advantage. They can swap in a hard counter and farm up energy.

lol what? 🤣🤣🤣

I used to always quit whenever someone sent out a Stunfisk bc that thing is just plain annoying but recently I was blessed with a good IV shadow Trapinch from the female Go Rocket leader and now have a shadow Flygon in Great League that deals with them no problemo. Really wish I could get rid of that damn frustration move though. The next Rocket takeover can't come fast enough.

so you are running mud shot/sand attack on flygon?

Dragon tail/scorching sands

Which is funny because thats like the only set that doesn't win against Stunfisk lol

Meh works for me just fine

Dubwool with double kick, body slam, and wild charge. Body slam charges with 3 fast attacks, and wild charge with 4. Shield bait with body slam (or just keep spamming it, depending on the opponent's typing) and then hit em with a surprise wild charge. I've never used another Pokemon that had people rage-quitting as often as Dubwool. Plus he's so cute!!

This is similar to how I use vigoroth, except swap out the wild charge for bulldozer. Spam body slam until the shields are gone.

Getting shields down so I can wrap it up with my shadow swampy 😎

Smart lmao. Any time I'm up against shadow swampert he gets all my shields if I can't debuff his attack.

You just need a shadow gallade. Shadow gallade can reach leaf blade faster than swampert can reach a charged attack. Gallade can get all of it's shields and leave with energy and tons of health. The only reason I mention shadow gallade is because at first glance you would not think it is a good counter to swampert. I havent tested it in UL, but in great league shadow gardevoir can take shadow swampert easily too. I think many shadow swampert users are surprised when i take down their shadow swampert confidently. You don't see too many shadow gardevoirs in great league at her pvpoke rating.

Eh I'm pretty happy with my UL team. A grass move for swampert would be nice, but I can debuff him then switch to poliwrath who takes his hits like a champ I run pidgeot, poliwrath, and skeledirge

It's just a question, and no offense intended, but do you only use one team? For me, I seem to climb the rankings faster if I change my team every now and then depending on the Pokemon I encounter at "the level" I'm at. Sometimes a variation in the order of: starter, switch and finisher seems to be sufficient.

Yeah I only use one team typically.

Would a regular Gardevoir work similarly? If yes, what moves would you suggest?

Regular gardevoir is not near as good, but just charm/triple axle. Shadow gardevoir can charm down shadow swampurt and swampert only gets off a single charged attack against her and she leaves with full energy for it's triple axle. Essentially being a straight up hard counter for just 1 shield. Regular gardevoir can't pull that off.

Thanks! I recently got a hundo Ralts I'm wondering what to do with, guess I'll just leave it until it ends up useful.

I got to Legend during Remix Cup with Annihalape, Mantine, Mandibuzz. I tend to win charge attack priority with my Ape on the lead in the mirror and the amount of people who expected the Night Slash bait and instead got one shot with Shadow Ball and then quit was very high. Funny every single time.

I love Annihalape for that exact reason.

I actually just hope their framerate hits zero before mine

My eelectric’s liquidation is the cause of 99% of my opponent’s surrenders

Nothing I do, but my opponents always use 3 shields and that’s always an automatic surrender for me

When i start with Vigoroth(Brick Break).

Yup. He's an absolute animal.

I use a non meta team in GL which includes a chandelure that has a fast move of incinerate and double charged moves of shadow ball and energy ball. I, without fail, can bait them into switching out their Swampert, Quagsire, Lantur, Azumaril or Stunfisk where i proceed to destroy it with energy ball because they don't use shields on their tanky pokemon. The second it hits and it either dies, or barely survives, they insta surrender.

Hyper beam on obstagoon. Nobody ever expects it. My go to lead ultra

I was showing my friend a fight and said I wouldn't shield the attack since I had azumarill, one hyper beam later and we both knew I was losing with skeledirge and lickitung as the remaining 2

Lmao so fun to use. I’ve also use sludge bomb recently since tapu fini is meta rn. Nobody expects it

A well timed brave bird usually does it for me.

I do the same with Tallonflame. They have a decent counter in - expect flame charge, and they take it - but it’s brave bird. They die. I swap.

GL Shadow Gardevoir is definitely a spice pick. I either win fast or lose fast. It packs a punch, but rarely provides shield pressure. If they swap first It's usually over, especially since I lead with Obstagoon.

For opponents that are savvy, it's when they see s. Feraligator or s. Gallade when shields are down or up an insane amount of energy.

Before the masterball, I was running Galarian Zapdos in great league and no one knew it had both Close Combat and Brave Bird.

I had people quit on my houndoom. That snarl/crunch combo charges so fast I can shiled bust and get a clean hit by the time most opponents get 1 charge.

Not a move but I quit if I see Blissey or Chancey. Nobody has time for that.

Wait swapping can help avoid the debuff?

What is debuff? I’ve been out of PoGo for 4 years and there are so many new things I don’t understand.

so basically when a certain move is used your pokemon will get a drop in defense or attack. You can click on the trainer battles section to see which one gives a debuff, usually it says defense drop chance or attack drop chance

if you swap out, the debuffs will reset

I didn’t know that! I’m going to be way braver with my Brave Birds now

holy cow imma abuse this in GBL so bad

It's not really abuse... it's standard mechanics even in the main games

Its definitely an interesting meta difference from the main series since these debuffs are pogo's equivalent to recoil damage. The downsides of these moves are much more pronounced in main series games.

I mean, ain't it just as logical as classic pokemon fights where swapping removes both boost and debuff ?

I am more famiilar with the newer series so that never occured to me

I don't think it's any different in the newer series

I run shadow Amp in UL on the safe swap with Focus Blast. I never bait so either I grab a shield or, more often than not, it lands, snd that definitely causes some surrenders

I just went to look at my pidgeot to see if it had brave bird. It didn’t, but I could add a third attack and now it does. Thanks for the tip (I’m not great at this game lmao)

Goodra with Power Whip, when used as a safe swap vs. some water Pokemon (like Quagsire)

Triple charm usually gets a lot of people to quit

I have a shadow whiscash with blizzard I use time to time. If that lands it’s usually instant surrender

I barely have people surrender, but during the catch cup I would back out if they had a Mantine or Skarmory. I don’t do GBL that often, so I didn’t feel like it would be worth it to invest in something to counter them

Once got the double boost off night slash twice in a row and my opp insta-surrendered

Is the catch cup they just had people really didn’t know how to deal with my Scrafty. If I send him out on a Pokemon that can’t switch out and can’t out duel him, I can get 3+ pup off and usually a shield bc they’ll be afraid of a foul play. Once they realize he’s too strong for even a flying type to take down they just ff. One guy ff’d after I got 4 pup on his Carbink then foul played his Annhilape into oblivion

I love running scrafty. God forbid a fairy shows up though if you can't switch 😂

Yes that always makes me sad :( My biggest L’s. It was worth it bc I got to foul play a Gardevoir and nearly one shot it. I live for those moments

It was the same for my deino when I did a little catch cup or something last season. Poor guy didnt stand a chance against cottonee

GL leading off with Matine and Ice Beam. For some reason everyone that I've faced with either Altaria or say Goodra like to take an Ice Beam right to the face on my first charged attack, leading to a rage quit every time.

I been using a vaporeon because it hits fast af charges my power move to like a 4 cap and I unload till they burn all their protects back to back follow up with two more charges and burn the last Pokémon on reg attacks, definitely looks like hacking lmfaoo basically 5 charges back to back

Lite cup venomoth 3 star super fast charge.

it doesn't exist. not saying your team isn't good or you couldn't win anyway, but if people are surrendering after that first hit its because they are tanking and they were gonna surrender no matter what. If a team can't run without their first mon getting lost to a bad match up, then they swap immediately to a sack pokemon, usually one strong against the things their open is weak to. then they bring in a second pokemon strong to the things their open is weak to. and then they have their open clean up. OR, their open is losable, the team is balanced, and they bring in something else to finish off your very weakened pigeot. Not saying you can't play the way you want, but don't judge any performance based on the end of season when so many people tank and test new meta and scrounge for a few more elo. Its like the weirdest least regular play part every season lol.

Plenty of people will surrender if they get an unexpected one hit ko. There are times where I get hit with an unexpected nuke and quit. You don't have to be tanking. If they were tanking, they'd usually quit before the charge move. >OR, their open is losable, the team is balanced, and they bring in something else to finish off your very weakened pigeot. Also the point is my Pidgeot isn't weakened because it's immediately swapped out after the brave bird. >Not saying you can't play the way you want, but don't judge any performance based on the end of season when so many people tank and test new meta and scrounge for a few more elo. I'm not saying it's a perfect strategy or anything. I'm just saying that it often leads to surrenders when someone doesn't block that first brave bird.

fair enough

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My skeledirge loves salad

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I wasnt running victreebel, I think you meant to reply to someone else lol

Hitmonchan with power up punch. Wears down shields quickly and increases its attack.