DP Banette

[kd24]

I'm trying to up my Peer Edits and trying to take a lot more time on them. I talked about this set to both Fishin and Aldaron and they both approved of it. More credit to Fishin for rephrasing little pieces that I wrote to make it much more readable and presentable.

http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/banette

[SET]
name: Trick Room
move 1: Trick Room
move 2: Destiny Bond
move 3: Taunt
move 4: Shadow Claw / Will-o-wisp
item: Focus Sash
ability: Insomnia
nature: Brave
evs: 252 Atk
ivs: 0 HP / 0 Def / 0 SpA / 0 SpD / 0 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
<p>The strategy behind this set is to set up Trick Room and then take down an opponent using Destiny Bond. Banette is one of only 2 Pokemon in UU that has access to both Insomnia and Trick Room, making it a perfect candidate.</p>

<p>With a Brave nature and 0 Speed IVs, Banette will hit 118 Speed, outspeeding almost any opposing Pokemon once Trick Room has been activated. Destiny Bond fits snugly into Banette's moveset, since after Trick Room is activated Banette will nearly always use it first, taking down the opponent and allowing you to switch in a new Pokemon to take advantage of Trick Room unscathed. Taunt will force any Pokemon to use an offensive move if you think the opponent might try to avoid attacking Banette directly. The last slot depends on how you plan to use Banette, offensively or defensively. If you want to use Banette as a quick suicide lead to get Trick Room up and sweep as soon as possible, Shadow Claw can prove pretty helpful for taking out any Pokemon that could possibly stop you or any Pokemon that just needs to be weakened first. However, Will-o-wisp almost seems natural in Trick Room, lowering Attack with Trick Room reversing Speed. Both are acceptable options and give Banette some way of hurting opposing Pokemon.</p>

<p>Since Banette wants as little HP as possible for Destiny Bond to activate, only Attack EVs are required. Banette also wants the slowest Speed stat possible, making a Brave nature optimal.</p>

<p>There is a different approach Banette can take with the set by ditching Destiny Bond for Knock Off and always using Will-o-wisp in the last slot. Banette can act as a defensive Pokemon easily, and almost nothing will outpace it in Trick Room. If you choose to do this, an EV spread of 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD with a Relaxed nature is recommended.</p>

Hopefully this is much better than my former Peer Edits and if there are mistakes, I will hopefully use this to push myself into writing better Peer Edits. Thanks!

 

[Evil Hamster]

Like the set :) Only mistake I could find was in the EVs; '252 Attack' should just be 252 Atk.

 

[Articanus]

Curse should be an option in the last slot to off yourself off so that your opponent doesn't waste your TR.

I remember doing this with Shuppet. it was fun. XD

 

[kd24]

Curse seems like a good choice as well, although I doubt you will be able to ever use it properly thanks to Banettes low defenses. Even things that set up SR or Rain Dance first will still attack you before you can curse.

I will definitely consider it but I would like more input on it.

Fixed the EV problem.

 

[Articanus]

Consider making the HP and Defense IVs 0 also, but I doubt it would really be that necessary. =/

 

[Winto]

If you want it to be as frail as possible, can't you just use Shuppet? Yeah, I think the 0 IV in HP and Defense would be too much.

I second that Curse is a good option. It's basically a second suicide option - if you want to get to your sweepers as soon as possible, you Curse so your opponent does not have any chance to waste precious Trick Room turns.

 

[kd24]

You also want to be able to attack with it, Banette has Shadow Claw compared to Shuppet shadow sneak.

edit: stupid mistake, shuppet is not banned in uu as it was fixed.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

Also, Shuppet is banned in UU for what its worth.

No it isn't. That was a mistake when implementing the UU ladder but it was fixed at the beginning of August.

Also, this set kinda loses to other lead Banettes with Shadow Sneak. To help with this a Shadow Sneak of your own could be an option in the last slot so that you have a good chance to set up Trick Room and break their Sash before dying to help your incoming TR recipient.

 

[Winto]

Shuppet is banned in UU? :/

That doesn't really make any sense. As I remember, NFE's of UU's are not banned.

Oh well, I'm not saying that you shouldn't use Banette anyway, that was just response to Articanus with the 0 HP and Attack IV's. :P

In my experience using this lead though, you barely attack as it is. Destiny Bond gives you the OHKO, and Curse shaves off 1/4th a turn. 115 Attack is not shabby, but when you've got a Swords Dancing Armaldo or Head Smashing Relicanth waiting in the wings, you want them to get as much as the five Trick Room turns as they can get.

 

[cim]

Taunt seems very dispensable here. Whatever you want to stop from happening is going before you, and if you're in Trick Room you don't want to waste any of those precious 5 turns.

In OU, the ideal scenario is a Tyranitar lead. Focus Sash saves you from a Crunch OHKO, but Sand Stream doesn't, giving your switch-in (SD Rhyperior) 4 turns to raise hell. Obviously this isn't possible in UU, so you're better off switching or DBing to get the reasonable maximum of 3 turns in.

Fuck, now I wanna make a Trick Room team.

 

[kd24]

When I used this set on the battlefield, I found myself using Taunt for one reason and it was a pretty important reason. When I found myself up against leads with more than 1 stat up move (drifblim, qwilfish, ect.) to make sure they attack afterwards. I did this to ensure that I used Destiny Bond effectively.

After looking it over and talking with some other people, Curse is going to be excluded from the set for the following reason:

<kd24> so should i put curse besides destiny bond?
<Fishin> you could
<kd24> with a note like "curse can be used over destiny to guarantee your escape. However, it will not ko a pokemon like Destiny Bond"
<Fishin> tbh I'd stick with just destiny bond, but that's just a guess
<kd24> oh ok
<kd24> yeah I will probably just stick to destiny bond for now
<Fishin> since bond kills the opponent while curse just cripples them
<kd24> yeah
<Fishin> and either way, they have to attack for banette to die
<kd24> the risk / reward is definitely worth destiny bond imp
<kd24> *imo
<Fishin> if you use curse you're left with a 50% banette, which is dead weight if they're not attacking

the parts i bolded are the really important parts. It explains pretty much perfectly why Destiny Bond is preferred on the set and curse isnt needed.

 

[Serv]

Banette is one of the 2 Pokemon in UU that has access to both Insomnia and Trick Room, making it a perfect candidate.

Minor nitpick but it sounds better if you switch out "the" with "only".

Also it's Will-O-Wisp so you might want to capitalize those letters you missed throughout the set description.

Other than those very minor nitpicks it's looks pretty good. Have a nice day ^^.

 

[Caelum]

Just tested it. Seems to work well enough but then I tried to change it a bit based on this statement

"<p>There is a different approach Banette can take with the set by ditching Destiny Bond for Knock Off and always using Will-o-wisp in the last slot. Banette can act as a defensive Pokemon easily, and almost nothing will outpace it in Trick Room. If you choose to do this, an EV spread of 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD with a Relaxed nature is recommended.</p>"

and the set became very, very mediocre and in my opinion Knock Off > Destiny Bond shouldn't even be mentioned. I tried to play this defensively and I found myself desperately wanting to use Destiny Bond. This set just plays so much better in Trick Room as almost suicidal then even bothering to go defensive. Maybe you had different experiences with it but from my failures with that modification I'm not sure you should even bother mentioning it.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

As I suggested to you on IRC, 0 IVs on every stat except Atk would be very beneficial to this set.

0 Speed = You are now faster in Trick Room
0 HP, Def, SpDef = You will be KOd by much weaker moves, making Destiny Bond so much more dangerous
0 SpAtk = I guess this one doesn't actually matter but hey why not =\

 

[kd24]

done and uploading. (after getting more people to look at it on irc, we couldnt find any other mistakes :/)