@@HuneeBruh yes, but they're usually not too worth it, unless there's an item clause in place. Speed doesn't really matter, and you never know if you're gonna be attacking on the physical or special side, so if possible you always wanna use leftovers in metronome battles to out-heal the opponent's chip damage
@@linkthepringlesman3951I assume that's because even though you use Metronome, it then counts the move Metronome calls as a different move, which breaks the metronome (item) chain?
A fun fact about berserk gene is 1) it has a special confusion, which instead of having a chance to be broken every turn, is guaranteed to last 2) the confusion isn’t infinite, but it is in somewhere of the realm of 256 or so turns
Another important detail with Acrobatics is that it pairs best with Flying Gem. Acrobatics checks for items after the gem is consumed so you still get the x2 bonus.
There's also a float stone that, if i'm not mistaking, gastrodon used to live trough grass knot. Not a dumb item, but i really enjoy using protective pads / punching glove. Really like these neat items.
@@notapear What's funny is this was long before Galarian Slowbro existed. This was either gen 6 or 7 (most likely 6, I didn't play much gen 7) and it was a Snorlax. Scarred for life.
Utility Umbrella is a good one to mention, it seems like it would be so good but the actual applications for it are essentially just “take less from kyogre water move”
It feels like it'd be the other way around, like the holder isn't affected by weather so its fire type moves aren't weakened in rain, but the opponent still gets the rain boost bc they're not under an umbrella and the move goes under the umbrella. That said, the existing way does seem much better, although still pretty garbage
God forbid the only usage of berserk gene ever in natdex balanced hackmons with own tempo zacian basically getting huge power from it. Then they just removed that ladder from existance
Remember, Mewtwo was intended to spawn with it. They toyed with the idea of a more balanced version of Zacian'a ability as a legendary encounter, woth perma confusion, way back then *when you were trying to catch the thing*
Enigma Berry unironically carried me through the Battle Tree in Sun/Moon. Enemy Pokemon would run the most absurd coverage options and i had Enigma Berry + D.Dance TTar to sweep on anything and could survive any suprise non stab Fighting moves
@@neog8029 Leon in the Battle Tower unironically always lead with a type advantage against you i did the math and it was something like Fire Weak - Cinderace Water/Ground Weak - Seismitoad or Inteleon Grass Weak - Rillaboom Rock/Ground Weak - Rhyperior Steel/Ghost Weak - Aegislash Dragon Weak - Haxorus or Dragapult Ice/Psychic - Mr.Rime And yes they would all run Coverage, his Mr.Rime always had Dazzling Gleam for example. The biggest offender for me personally is his Electro Ball Cinderace
@@drxavier1870 isn't Mr Rime a fairy type? It's not really coverage as much as it is just running stab at that point Also electro ball cinderace is nasty bro what's Leon cooking
Please do! Very interesting, I appreciate your opinions about stuff more than learning when it comes to a topic like this. Like i knew most of these but I had no idea how you’d react to stuff like quick claw, lol.
I think the reason they got rid of Berserk Gene after Gen 2 was because of the introduction of Abilities. If the Berserk Gene DID exist, you could slap it on a Pokemon with Own Tempo. Ironically, though, all of the Pokemon that had the Ability in Gen 3 were either Special Attackers, had better things to do, or were just crap. In Gen 4, Purugly and Lickylicky could take advantage of it, but Purugly wants Thick Fat. I could see Lickylicky being pretty scary with it in its home of NU, with its solid defensive bulk. In Gen 6, Own Tempo Avalugg would _potentially_ be nightmarish, except it's freaking slow and is a pure Ice type, and it probably benefits more from Ice Body or Sturdy. In Gen 7, Mudsdale would be disgustingly powerful with it, but it probably wants Stamina more. Like Avalugg, it's extremely slow. In Gen 9, Tinkaton could be pretty scary when Gigaton Hammer is coming off a doubled Attack stat...but it can already learn Swords Dance anyway.
Flame orb also has a funny set on Sigilyph, where you run Magic Guard and Psycho Shift with it to spread burn. Not very practical since it gets toxic anyways, but it is really funny
Psycho Shift Toxic Orb can be pretty neat on a Psycho Shift + Cosmic Power Set, since because you poisoned yourself, the opponent can't status you (sleep or para, since Magic Guard protects you from the others anyways) Pretty Niche, but I could see if being genuinely viable lmao
Quick Claw is niche in competitive, but an essential in-game item in many cases, especially when it's the only good held item you get for a while outside of berries. In multiple games it's pretty much the first proper held item you get, and can be clutch against overpowered early gym leaders. it is insanely luck-base so it's a hail mary strategy, but when it works, it works. I've watched several Nuzlocke playthroughs singlehandedly saved from team wipe by a timely Quick Claw activation.
Also the ways it’s niche in competitive is really, really funny, at least in Singles. Nobody, not a soul, would willfully gamble on 10% odds when Choice Scarf is right there. The only time it’s useful is whenever something busted is so prevalent that the most lizard brain counter on ladder is to take your big dumb wallbreaker, get to say “nah, I’d win” 10% of the time, and obliterate them
Months ago I was playing monotype and got shit on by a grass team with an Arboliva harvest and starf berry set. I tried that set next game, was doing great against a dragon team until i got an outrage crit and lost my olive :(
All fun and games until the sticky barb tatsugiri faints inside the dondozos mouth, and then costar flamigo switches in and copies the double omniboost.
One more thing about Iron ball! Not only does it slow your Pokemon but also makes Pokemon who are either flying type or have levitate become grounded. This may sounds terrible (and it is) but it also allows certain Pokemon to use their terrains.
Flare Boost Drifblim always being forgotten... (for those unaware Flare Boost is basically a Special Attack variant Guts but only triggered by Burn instead of any Status) It also learns Trick so you can gain the Burn boost then swap items with the opponent to gain another useful item while Burning the other. Also on note for Razor Claw, there's Honchcrow and Absol with Super Luck using Crit Enhanced Moves like Night Slash/Psycho Cut/Air Cutter/ect which turn them into Crit Gods.
People forget that Pokemon crit boosts are actually really, really low under the hood. Like, less layers than normal stat buffs. Focus Energy alone sets you to half the maximum crit rate, or a +2 boost. If you have a crit rate ability, a crit rate item, and Focus Energy, you can achieve 100% crits.
i ran enigma berry on lunala in sword and shield to heal back to full and reenable shadow shield after being hit by weak moves like snarl and shadow sneak. even if lunala didnt get back to full, it just made sense on that mon, because think about it: any attack than can get lunala under 50% through shadow shield will kill it no matter what the next turn, even if lunala gets healed to 75% by a sitrus berry, because the attack will deal at least 50% x2. but, if lunala takes a ghost or dark move that does, say, 40% through shadow shield, it will heal to 85% with the enigma berry, and then survive getting hit by that same move doing 80%. obviously, this is a super niche interaction, and even then is only really good if youre relatively sure that lunala is going to be taking ghost and dark moves that specifically do 41% or less during most games (100-41+25=84, -82=2 vs 100-42+25=83, -84=-1). with a lot of mons in that era of vgc running snarl, though, that wasnt nearly as unlikely as you might think, and in the event that a ghost or dark move took lunala below 50% through shadow shield, it would behave identically to sitrus berry. what all of this means is that, for lunala specifically, youre trading the ability to heal 25% off of the 16 types you already take incredibly well for the ability to heal early against the 2 types that really give you trouble. to me, in that format, it seemed like a reasonable enough trade. its difficult to imagine any other use for the enigma berry, but i wanted to point out that there *is* at least a single way to use it that has *some advantages* over the sitrus berry. thank you for reading 💚
I saw the Slowbro on the Quick Claw slide, but didn't hear any shout-out to it. I built a Quick Claw Galarian Slowbro in Gen 8 for the ladder. With both Quick Claw and Quick Draw, if the math works how I think it does, these effects give Slowbro a 44% chance to move first in its priority bracket, regardless of anything else on the field (e.g.: Trick Room doesn't matter). And with Shell Side Arm being a "pick your damage" move, this has won me games outright when my back was against the wall. Not all the time, but enough of the time to feel good about when it happened. The only reason I don't use Fast Slowbro in Gen 9 is because the power creep has been significant, and at team building time, I can find myself struggling to settle on *only* 6 Pokemon for my team. The core popular VGC metagame has a variety of workable team ideas, I think, so I don't have an extra slot leftover for a pinch hitter like that.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the Jaboca and Rowap berry. They do 1/8 damage to anything that hits you with a physical or special attack respectively and are basically useless except in nuzlockes if you just need to get some chip damage for a kill
So one of the funny things about quick claw torkoal is that I would not have brought it if showdown simply had eject pack implemented correctly b/c at the time I didn't know if the intimidate drought interaction was different from gen 8. The other funny thing is that I hit way above the expected number for Fissure connections :] Thanks for the S/O homie
lansat berry was super fun to use back when baton pass was a thing. i used to have a Speed Boost Scolipede set that sub'd till 25% for Lansat, passed to a Sniper Kingdra holding Scope Lens, and proceeded to boom whole teams using Draco Meteor lmao
To be fair, Razor Claw (and Scope Lens) are. . . interesting items when it comes to "luck-based horseshit." In Gen 6 and beyond, you have a 50% Crit Chance at +2, and a 100% Crit Chance at +3, meaning if you reach that third stage, you eliminate luck entirely. Unfortunately, reaching +2 Crit Chance is easy - Increased Crit Move + Razor Claw - while +3 is inconvenient at best, requiring the Super Luck ability with the aforementioned combo, using Focus Energy (or Dragon Cheer), or other gimmicks. This makes it pretty unviable, to say the least, in competitive. HOWEVER, for an in-game playthrough? Well, max friendship (affection prior to Gen 8) doubles your crit chance, meaning +2 is now 100%. This makes Razor Claw / Scope Lens really useful. In a number of games they're locked to the postgame, but in Scarlet/Violet, you can actually get a Scope Lens as early as Levincia (Where you battle Iono, 3rd Gym in intended order). Speaking from personal experience, there's no Pokemon to take better advantage of this than Gallade, as with Sharpness + Crit you have a 2.25x damage boost, making Aqua Cutter, Leaf Blade, and Night Slash effectively 157 Base Power, while Psycho Cut is boosted to an INSANE 236 BP thanks to STAB (not to mention, that's 315 BP if you terastalize into psychic).
I'd argue something like the Flame Orb isn't "useless" so much as it was specifically designed to only be useful for certain Pokemon, because it's pretty damn effective on Pokemon who can take advantage of it, like with Guts. Basically just makes it a better Life Orb; bigger damage boost, less health cost.
getting to wave 250+ and those endure tokens make me so angry, something i could have killed in one shot braces the hit only to gain 75% of their health back WITH a ton of boosts just because of the coin flip... thanks enigma berry
i like on meta items with off meta uses, trick scarf or klutz trick AV are the obvious ones but theres definitely more like the anti dynamax trick eject button set
Something notable about quickclaw is the hilarious monoclaw team that ranked at 14th, it used powerful bulky threats like Gambit, Iron Hands, Ursaluna (at the time) with set up moves behind screens, yet they all held a quick claw. The mons at the time were simply so good that they didn't necessarily need an item to beat an opposing team and games could be won without quick claw ever proccing because of the players skill but, the 1/5 times it did proc it was insanely strong and really stupid. Amazing team and I recommend everyone read the Smogon post made about it
When I first heard about the enigma berry, I thought it was a one time use water absorb but for any attack you're weak to as in said super effective move would deal no damage and then heal you for a quarter of your help, but I guess some of the berries were meant to be Easter eggs/jokes instead of actually being useful in battle or even making sense
It makes sense since you are never meant to get the berry.. Imagine if the most valuable held item was obtained by getting a specific berry on an old gen game and then transferring a pokémon that's holding it to a new game
I could see a use for Berserk Gene in gens after Gen 2, just because of abilities like Own Tempo and Tangled Feet (I honestly thought there were other abilities as well that interacted with confusion, but apparently not), although I bet Own Tempo would just stop the item from activating because Gamefreak hates fun. But with Tangled Feet, you could have a pokemon that receives +2 attack and +2 evasion on switch-in, which makes the game much more random, and would make me ragequit just as often as my opponent would ragequit.
A funny set is room service contrary Enamorous-I, somewhat successful in 3v3 for the surprise factor. Flutter Mane: Look what they did just to mimic a fraction of our power.
i loved running iron ball trick prankster in gen 8 uu removes their ground immunity, halves their speed, takes away their item and they can still get statused including para it could be used to stop boosted pokemon that wouldve swept your team
There was this one baton pass team in either ORAS/SM that would use Lansat Berry Scolipede passing into Mega Heracross, logic being with all its multihit moves it had good odds to crit it's way through stuff especially with an SD up, which may seem overkill but made a difference vs stuff like Clefable, definitely wasn't the most popular version of BP by a mile but it did exist for a bit!
lansat berry was """good""" on dragon dance harvest tropius gimick sets with natural gift when the move was still around. it gave you a decent flying stab and boosted the crit chance of your leaf blade (and other moves) all in one, and harvest meant you could use it multiple times. So not totally useless!
While not items that necessarily belong on this video, I find light bulb pikachu and eviolite friend guard Clefairy to provide some interesting niches.
A personal dumb *if not just underrated..* item of mine, is Custap Berry! Makes your mon move first in the speed bracket when you're under 25% of your health, and activates at the START of the turn after you reach 25% health (when you use a move), this means that you can - as an example of course - run Endure on calyrex-s and oranguru with sash, oranguru has inner focus and cannot be flinched. Trick room oranguru of course, and if its still alive, calyrex-s is guaranteed to be alive- use instruct + astral barrage! Custap forces Calyrex-S to move FIRST in the speed bracket, which is reversed in TR - he does not care and moves first anyways. Instruct happens *after* he uses astral barrage, letting him use it again :) Obviously, priority moves are a bitch. This does not give priority +1, 2, whatever- it simply forces them to move first. *However I think this is still blocked by psychic terrain for some reason?? But I'll have to do some testing on that.*
Shoutout to the dumb item grip claw, for making that one Volcanion set just that little bit more better against stall at the cost of being worse against everything else
Lagging Tail can also be useful on my favorite bad gimmick set... Prankster Lagging Tail Grafaiai, with Copycat and Dig. dig moves last, then prankster copycat moves first and copies your own dig -- making you invulnerable! as long as they dont have any priority moves... or earthquake....... or a non-scarfed flying type to stall you out...........
I tried running the item metronome on an echoed voice pixilate sylveon back in the day. Didn’t really work out because I was 13 and my opponents had brains, but on paper it sounds like a decent idea
Lansat berry raising crit chance could be combined with stuff like nightslash and slash to almost guarunty a crit but there are probably better options for sure. Starf sounds like a funny thing to do. Surprised King's rock isn't mentioned given the paraflinch strats it opens the door to even further than a pokemon with serene grace and moves like iron head. What would be really funny is introducing an item that can do anything randomly as long as its not an attacking move and now imagine clefairy metronome battles with said item.
Razor Claw/Scope Lens actually sees usage on Archaludon and Regidrago. After a Focus Energy, all you moves are guaranteed to be critical hits, so they can spam 1.5x damage Draco Meteor like there's no tomorrow without caring about things like Parting Shot or Eerie Impulse.
Flame orb has the additional usefulness of making your guts facade user burnt, don't think that was mentioned. I don't follow singles but it''s used a bunch in VGC.
Come to think of it, whatever happened to Salac Berry and the other stat boosting berries? I see them all the time in Gen 3 movesets, but barely anywhere else. Were they simply powercrept?
The short answer is that there's a lot more mons to deal with, so you can't prepare for specific rolls that would get you into pinch range. Also Booster Energy makes it so all paradox pokémon have a better option.
I think the problem with berries is that most abilities that use them feel... inconclusive. Like sure harvest is cool, but you kinda want to procc these berries sooner. But gluttony doesn't let you have more berries unless you use recycle.Or the berries don't give that much unless you have cud chew, or they don't heal a lot unless you have cheek pouch. It really feels like the berry-abilities are a lot weaker than they could realistically be, the most significant berry users I can think of is figy berry gluttony Snorlax and Linoone in S/M back when it restored 50% hp.
This is just making me go back to the Regieleki nicknames Lightning McQueen picture where bro says Kachow and used agility three times before tricked by rotom revealing choice scarf 😂😂😂
There's actually a niche use for enigma berry, you can give it to a bulky psychic setting up cosmic powers (or iron defense etc.) with like stored power and body press (mew, necrozma etc.) and if ypu get hit by knock off you still heal the 25% because the effectiveness is checked before the item gets removed, just like weakness policy, no other item, no sitrus, no lefties, no pinch berry can heal you after being knocked off
Flame Orb is also useful on drifblim to activate Flare Boost. And to also remind you that Pokemon gave the blimp Pokemon FLARE Boost as a lovely reminder of the Hindenburg disaster.
Running no items also weakens knock off against you and makes you immune to poltergeist. In some cases (esp in low tiers infested with physical ghost types) it is better for defensive ghost weak pokemon to forgo an item just to turn their matchup against physical ghosts on its head.
gotta put sticky barb / black sludge magic guard on this list as well. trick the item onto an unsuspecting mon and watch as they take chip. pretty cool
the only time i used a razor fang/kings rock for the flinch chance was when i used a skill link cinccino... eventually i just swapped it for a choice band which seemed more useful
Razor Claw isn't luck-based if combined with Focus Energy, as that brings you up to +3 crit or 100% crit chance. If used on a 'mon with "Sniper" it's actually not terrible....Draco Meteor Kingdra is actually pretty fun (since stat drops don't affect crits). Of course, the Scope Lens is the same deal.
IDK about your thoughts on razor claw. It's a great item for mons with increased crit rate moves, or dragon types that have been boosted thru dragon cheer. It can allow mons to always crit and avoid the spa drop of draco meteor and hit thru screens. I think your underrating that item a bit. It's niche but not useless.
The berries are probably so bad because they're more of a trophy for completing battle challenges (Battle Tower, etc) or a fun bonus for distribution events instead of items intended to actually see use. If they were actually good, then it'd feel mandatory for players to complete these really long and grueling battle challenges (some of which are in spin-off games, which means spending more money on additional consoles/games) or attending distributions in order to stay on par with the competition. This way, they're just kind of fun to have around. (Although I think some of the gen 3 berries are really good for Pokeblocks.)
Playing Gen 3 ROM hack that have Berserk Gene available. Works nicely with Own Tempo or if Misty Terrain is up. Now that I've thought about it, I should try it on an Unburden poke.
Out of curiosity, wouldn't Enigma Berry have a very niche use on like.. Dragonite for example? (And Terapagos) Supereffective attack deals less than 50%, so it deals roughly 25% after multiscale, then Dragonite is healed back to full, recovering the multiscale. With a sitrus berry, you take the 25%, then 50% bringing you down to 25%, then you heal back to 50%, then you die. But with an enigma berry, you get to 75, then 75, then 25, and then you die, letting you tank an additional hit you wouldn't have normally with Sitrus berry, as Sitrus berry does not heal you above 50%.
I use the Enigma berry for a slightly different use. I use it on Shedinja so if you don't get an idiot noob as your opponent and you don't outspeed, you essentially get a free hit. Combo this with EV trained Speed & Attack, and you can outspeed anybody not specifically meant to be a speedy sweeper and hopefully get a good hit in. It does struggle with tanks a little bit though, unless you've got super effective STAB which... isn't too common when facing tanks 😅 edit: forgot to mention: if you could build a Baton Pass team with Shedinja as your sweeper, that could potentially be really effective with Enigma berry as a free hit
Flame orb is prob the best item for pokemon with the guts as an ability. Burn's attack down does not work for guts mons. And you will still get max atk boost for them. I am sure that it is not just undoing the burn. The only other item that is used with guts mons is toxic orb, which is the same but with poison, and in this case, if an enemy mon has venoshock, you will be in a huge risk. I don't remember any fire-type move that doubles in power against burnt targets. Though maybe I just forgot.
shout out to *scope* *lens* focus energy hydreigon for actually being a genuinely threatening mon in gen 9 reg A VGC. i also cooked a little with razor claw ceruledge in that format, as a way to win the bulk up war vs annihilape w/ 50% shadow claw crits
Something about berserk gene for people who plays Pokémon Natdex Draft on Pokémon showdown. It is a legal item in the format and if you have Misty terrain Tapu Fini or Weezing Galar, the +2 attack will be triggered while not being confused. Slap that onto an unburden Mon like sneasler or hitmonlee (need to be grounded rip hawlucha) you get a Mon that’s +2 attack and +2 speed on switch in. 😊 Do whatever you wish with this information.
btw I want to say that this was made before the Emvee stuff came to light. I'm obviously not a fan of his anymore, fuck him.
What happened?
@@superautopenguin2877tldr they got caught soliciting minors
@@aidenconway9087 That’s… not on
I seriously did not hear of the news until I got to this video.
The elites don't want you to know this but use the Metronome item while using the Metronome move
As someone who plays competitive metronome battles, I’ve looked into it. It doesn’t work.
@@linkthepringlesman3951 that's what the elites want you to think
@@linkthepringlesman3951 do choice items work?
@@HuneeBruh yes, but they're usually not too worth it, unless there's an item clause in place. Speed doesn't really matter, and you never know if you're gonna be attacking on the physical or special side, so if possible you always wanna use leftovers in metronome battles to out-heal the opponent's chip damage
@@linkthepringlesman3951I assume that's because even though you use Metronome, it then counts the move Metronome calls as a different move, which breaks the metronome (item) chain?
A fun fact about berserk gene is
1) it has a special confusion, which instead of having a chance to be broken every turn, is guaranteed to last
2) the confusion isn’t infinite, but it is in somewhere of the realm of 256 or so turns
Ah so if I stall for 256 turns I get a free swords dance cool
to be fair, you ARE playing gen 2, so 256 turns sounds average
256 turns is nothing for gen 2 tackle porygon
At last... "Badly Confused"
Running bad items on purpose so when the enemy uses trick they get an even worse item.
at that point just run black sludge.
@@notapearnah your opponent will see you take damage if you aren’t a poison type, you gotta keep em in suspense
they'll never expect the hotdog switch
In balanced hackmons, prankster blissey with iron ball and switcheroo/trick is actually pretty op.
How about Oran Berry Blissey?
Another important detail with Acrobatics is that it pairs best with Flying Gem. Acrobatics checks for items after the gem is consumed so you still get the x2 bonus.
I think it was only a +50% boost, but you're right in every other respect.
@@JanusHoW 2x boost by 55 going to 110
@@airam1721Ah right.
Imagine if all the Type Gems are still here.
Imagine Unburden-Hawlucha with Flying Gem using Acrobatics.
@@gameboy3d943 Fangames!
There's also a float stone that, if i'm not mistaking, gastrodon used to live trough grass knot.
Not a dumb item, but i really enjoy using protective pads / punching glove. Really like these neat items.
Opposite to that is iron ball. In gen4, Metagross tricks iron ball to make zapdos, rotom and latios move last and be vulernable to spikes + EQ.
I'll never forget losing a game to Quick Claw activating 3 times on my opponent's last mon...
behold the wonder of monoclaw.
@@notapear What's funny is this was long before Galarian Slowbro existed. This was either gen 6 or 7 (most likely 6, I didn't play much gen 7) and it was a Snorlax. Scarred for life.
THE CLAW 👽
I once got swept by an inxredibly lucky claw torkoal with eruption
Utility Umbrella is a good one to mention, it seems like it would be so good but the actual applications for it are essentially just “take less from kyogre water move”
Yeah, it feels like they got cold feet at the last second or something
It feels like it'd be the other way around, like the holder isn't affected by weather so its fire type moves aren't weakened in rain, but the opponent still gets the rain boost bc they're not under an umbrella and the move goes under the umbrella. That said, the existing way does seem much better, although still pretty garbage
this item would be so insane in gen 5
Quick claw my beloved. All will fear Buster Scruggs the draw claw Galarian Slowbro.
Running no item also gives you an immunity to Poltergeist, which depending on the mon, can completely wall a Ghost type attack lmao
Yeah, I believe a no item toxapex was at one point in the team at the top of the gen 8 Ubers ladder, completely stonewalling marshadow.
“Miscellaneous dumbassery” is the name of my autobiography
God forbid the only usage of berserk gene ever in natdex balanced hackmons with own tempo zacian basically getting huge power from it. Then they just removed that ladder from existance
Remember, Mewtwo was intended to spawn with it.
They toyed with the idea of a more balanced version of Zacian'a ability as a legendary encounter, woth perma confusion, way back then *when you were trying to catch the thing*
@@Bird-wz7nx You can't catch Mewtwo in gen 2 though, it has to be traded.
Enigma Berry unironically carried me through the Battle Tree in Sun/Moon. Enemy Pokemon would run the most absurd coverage options and i had Enigma Berry + D.Dance TTar to sweep on anything and could survive any suprise non stab Fighting moves
Sun and moon and USUM had some wild shit on their trainers man
Pokemon battle facilities straight up reading your teams past a certain point to frick you over moment.
@@neog8029 Leon in the Battle Tower unironically always lead with a type advantage against you i did the math and it was something like
Fire Weak - Cinderace
Water/Ground Weak - Seismitoad or Inteleon
Grass Weak - Rillaboom
Rock/Ground Weak - Rhyperior
Steel/Ghost Weak - Aegislash
Dragon Weak - Haxorus or Dragapult
Ice/Psychic - Mr.Rime
And yes they would all run Coverage, his Mr.Rime always had Dazzling Gleam for example. The biggest offender for me personally is his Electro Ball Cinderace
@@drxavier1870 isn't Mr Rime a fairy type? It's not really coverage as much as it is just running stab at that point
Also electro ball cinderace is nasty bro what's Leon cooking
@@InsertFunnyThingHere im like 78% sure its Ice/Psychic
This is in no way comprehensive. I might end up making another one of these, there’s so much crazy stuff.
Please do! Very interesting, I appreciate your opinions about stuff more than learning when it comes to a topic like this. Like i knew most of these but I had no idea how you’d react to stuff like quick claw, lol.
Destiny Knot left the chat
i heals before you get hit
You can give enigma berry to something like cosmic power mew and actually heal off after getting hit by knock off, something no other item can do
I think the reason they got rid of Berserk Gene after Gen 2 was because of the introduction of Abilities. If the Berserk Gene DID exist, you could slap it on a Pokemon with Own Tempo.
Ironically, though, all of the Pokemon that had the Ability in Gen 3 were either Special Attackers, had better things to do, or were just crap.
In Gen 4, Purugly and Lickylicky could take advantage of it, but Purugly wants Thick Fat. I could see Lickylicky being pretty scary with it in its home of NU, with its solid defensive bulk.
In Gen 6, Own Tempo Avalugg would _potentially_ be nightmarish, except it's freaking slow and is a pure Ice type, and it probably benefits more from Ice Body or Sturdy.
In Gen 7, Mudsdale would be disgustingly powerful with it, but it probably wants Stamina more. Like Avalugg, it's extremely slow.
In Gen 9, Tinkaton could be pretty scary when Gigaton Hammer is coming off a doubled Attack stat...but it can already learn Swords Dance anyway.
Avalugg with a purpose? The world isn't ready for this!!!
Honestly the Berserk Gene could’ve worked cause it wouldn’t really be centralized
You forgot about the terrors that would be Tangled Feet Dodrio and Flamigo.
Flame orb also has a funny set on Sigilyph, where you run Magic Guard and Psycho Shift with it to spread burn. Not very practical since it gets toxic anyways, but it is really funny
It still knows toxic? It didn't get removed?
@@pketr5 sigilyph is only in natdex in gen 9, so it doesn’t matter that toxic isn’t universal anymore
Psycho Shift Toxic Orb can be pretty neat on a Psycho Shift + Cosmic Power Set, since because you poisoned yourself, the opponent can't status you (sleep or para, since Magic Guard protects you from the others anyways)
Pretty Niche, but I could see if being genuinely viable lmao
Quick Claw is niche in competitive, but an essential in-game item in many cases, especially when it's the only good held item you get for a while outside of berries. In multiple games it's pretty much the first proper held item you get, and can be clutch against overpowered early gym leaders. it is insanely luck-base so it's a hail mary strategy, but when it works, it works. I've watched several Nuzlocke playthroughs singlehandedly saved from team wipe by a timely Quick Claw activation.
“Overpowered Gym leaders” now that’s a sentence
@ultimapower6950 There absolutely are ridiculous early gym leaders when nuzlocking. Seems more like you just don't know what he is talking about.
@@Zwijger go on, what are they, this is funny
Also the ways it’s niche in competitive is really, really funny, at least in Singles. Nobody, not a soul, would willfully gamble on 10% odds when Choice Scarf is right there. The only time it’s useful is whenever something busted is so prevalent that the most lizard brain counter on ladder is to take your big dumb wallbreaker, get to say “nah, I’d win” 10% of the time, and obliterate them
@@Zwijger who? (genuine question)
Months ago I was playing monotype and got shit on by a grass team with an Arboliva harvest and starf berry set. I tried that set next game, was doing great against a dragon team until i got an outrage crit and lost my olive :(
Wait that’s crazy cool
All fun and games until the sticky barb tatsugiri faints inside the dondozos mouth, and then costar flamigo switches in and copies the double omniboost.
One more thing about Iron ball! Not only does it slow your Pokemon but also makes Pokemon who are either flying type or have levitate become grounded. This may sounds terrible (and it is) but it also allows certain Pokemon to use their terrains.
Finally
Expanding Force Mesprit
Flare Boost Drifblim always being forgotten... (for those unaware Flare Boost is basically a Special Attack variant Guts but only triggered by Burn instead of any Status) It also learns Trick so you can gain the Burn boost then swap items with the opponent to gain another useful item while Burning the other.
Also on note for Razor Claw, there's Honchcrow and Absol with Super Luck using Crit Enhanced Moves like Night Slash/Psycho Cut/Air Cutter/ect which turn them into Crit Gods.
Don't forget razor claw Ogerpon, who gets 100% crit rate by clicking Focus Energy once
People forget that Pokemon crit boosts are actually really, really low under the hood. Like, less layers than normal stat buffs. Focus Energy alone sets you to half the maximum crit rate, or a +2 boost. If you have a crit rate ability, a crit rate item, and Focus Energy, you can achieve 100% crits.
@@lancesmith8298 you have a point, though also half those people just straight up forget Focus Energy exists/don't know its effects at all...
Petition to add Heavy duty frauds to this, just deny hazards smh
Loool you have no idea
I mean the enigma berry is named the ENIGMA berry for a reason, the real enigma being finding a reason to use it
Everybody gangsta until Lucky Punch Chansey starts sweeping.
Someone brought Mail to a Smogon Premier League Gen 4 game this year. I never thought I'd see it (sorta) work in such a high-level playing field.
Running no item to reduce Knock Off Damage and be immune to Poltergeist is funny too
Hell yeah GroundWaveBoyEnemy uploaded a presentation about dumb items!!
I love that out of everything banned in ADV series, it was like wynaut, soul dew and then ENGIMA berry.
Whenever I watch a pokeaimd video with Emvee, and they’re building a wacky team, a big nugget is always flung into the conversation
i ran enigma berry on lunala in sword and shield to heal back to full and reenable shadow shield after being hit by weak moves like snarl and shadow sneak.
even if lunala didnt get back to full, it just made sense on that mon, because think about it: any attack than can get lunala under 50% through shadow shield will kill it no matter what the next turn, even if lunala gets healed to 75% by a sitrus berry, because the attack will deal at least 50% x2.
but, if lunala takes a ghost or dark move that does, say, 40% through shadow shield, it will heal to 85% with the enigma berry, and then survive getting hit by that same move doing 80%.
obviously, this is a super niche interaction, and even then is only really good if youre relatively sure that lunala is going to be taking ghost and dark moves that specifically do 41% or less during most games (100-41+25=84, -82=2 vs 100-42+25=83, -84=-1).
with a lot of mons in that era of vgc running snarl, though, that wasnt nearly as unlikely as you might think, and in the event that a ghost or dark move took lunala below 50% through shadow shield, it would behave identically to sitrus berry.
what all of this means is that, for lunala specifically, youre trading the ability to heal 25% off of the 16 types you already take incredibly well for the ability to heal early against the 2 types that really give you trouble. to me, in that format, it seemed like a reasonable enough trade.
its difficult to imagine any other use for the enigma berry, but i wanted to point out that there *is* at least a single way to use it that has *some advantages* over the sitrus berry.
thank you for reading 💚
I saw the Slowbro on the Quick Claw slide, but didn't hear any shout-out to it. I built a Quick Claw Galarian Slowbro in Gen 8 for the ladder. With both Quick Claw and Quick Draw, if the math works how I think it does, these effects give Slowbro a 44% chance to move first in its priority bracket, regardless of anything else on the field (e.g.: Trick Room doesn't matter). And with Shell Side Arm being a "pick your damage" move, this has won me games outright when my back was against the wall. Not all the time, but enough of the time to feel good about when it happened.
The only reason I don't use Fast Slowbro in Gen 9 is because the power creep has been significant, and at team building time, I can find myself struggling to settle on *only* 6 Pokemon for my team. The core popular VGC metagame has a variety of workable team ideas, I think, so I don't have an extra slot leftover for a pinch hitter like that.
I just can't deal with the uncertainty of the Quickbro in actual play. I thought I'd love it
I'm surprised you didn't mention the Jaboca and Rowap berry. They do 1/8 damage to anything that hits you with a physical or special attack respectively and are basically useless except in nuzlockes if you just need to get some chip damage for a kill
I've only ever seen Rowap used with Harvest as a scuffed version of special Rocly Helmet
So one of the funny things about quick claw torkoal is that I would not have brought it if showdown simply had eject pack implemented correctly b/c at the time I didn't know if the intimidate drought interaction was different from gen 8.
The other funny thing is that I hit way above the expected number for Fissure connections :] Thanks for the S/O homie
That’s amazing LOL
lansat berry was super fun to use back when baton pass was a thing. i used to have a Speed Boost Scolipede set that sub'd till 25% for Lansat, passed to a Sniper Kingdra holding Scope Lens, and proceeded to boom whole teams using Draco Meteor lmao
To be fair, Razor Claw (and Scope Lens) are. . . interesting items when it comes to "luck-based horseshit." In Gen 6 and beyond, you have a 50% Crit Chance at +2, and a 100% Crit Chance at +3, meaning if you reach that third stage, you eliminate luck entirely. Unfortunately, reaching +2 Crit Chance is easy - Increased Crit Move + Razor Claw - while +3 is inconvenient at best, requiring the Super Luck ability with the aforementioned combo, using Focus Energy (or Dragon Cheer), or other gimmicks. This makes it pretty unviable, to say the least, in competitive.
HOWEVER, for an in-game playthrough? Well, max friendship (affection prior to Gen 8) doubles your crit chance, meaning +2 is now 100%. This makes Razor Claw / Scope Lens really useful. In a number of games they're locked to the postgame, but in Scarlet/Violet, you can actually get a Scope Lens as early as Levincia (Where you battle Iono, 3rd Gym in intended order).
Speaking from personal experience, there's no Pokemon to take better advantage of this than Gallade, as with Sharpness + Crit you have a 2.25x damage boost, making Aqua Cutter, Leaf Blade, and Night Slash effectively 157 Base Power, while Psycho Cut is boosted to an INSANE 236 BP thanks to STAB (not to mention, that's 315 BP if you terastalize into psychic).
Their utility is being the last piece of critxodia to become buget Urshifu
I'd argue something like the Flame Orb isn't "useless" so much as it was specifically designed to only be useful for certain Pokemon, because it's pretty damn effective on Pokemon who can take advantage of it, like with Guts. Basically just makes it a better Life Orb; bigger damage boost, less health cost.
Enigma berry is S tier in pokerogue when the enemy has it
really? that's surprising but im also total dogshit at pokerogue so ill take it from you
getting to wave 250+ and those endure tokens make me so angry, something i could have killed in one shot braces the hit only to gain 75% of their health back WITH a ton of boosts just because of the coin flip... thanks enigma berry
i like on meta items with off meta uses, trick scarf or klutz trick AV are the obvious ones but theres definitely more like the anti dynamax trick eject button set
Something notable about quickclaw is the hilarious monoclaw team that ranked at 14th, it used powerful bulky threats like Gambit, Iron Hands, Ursaluna (at the time) with set up moves behind screens, yet they all held a quick claw. The mons at the time were simply so good that they didn't necessarily need an item to beat an opposing team and games could be won without quick claw ever proccing because of the players skill but, the 1/5 times it did proc it was insanely strong and really stupid. Amazing team and I recommend everyone read the Smogon post made about it
Just gotta say, these videos are awesome because there is no fluff and yet tons of great info. Keep it up!
When I first heard about the enigma berry, I thought it was a one time use water absorb but for any attack you're weak to as in said super effective move would deal no damage and then heal you for a quarter of your help, but I guess some of the berries were meant to be Easter eggs/jokes instead of actually being useful in battle or even making sense
It makes sense since you are never meant to get the berry.. Imagine if the most valuable held item was obtained by getting a specific berry on an old gen game and then transferring a pokémon that's holding it to a new game
I could see a use for Berserk Gene in gens after Gen 2, just because of abilities like Own Tempo and Tangled Feet (I honestly thought there were other abilities as well that interacted with confusion, but apparently not), although I bet Own Tempo would just stop the item from activating because Gamefreak hates fun. But with Tangled Feet, you could have a pokemon that receives +2 attack and +2 evasion on switch-in, which makes the game much more random, and would make me ragequit just as often as my opponent would ragequit.
Micle berry alakazam has no switch ins, 100% accurate focus blasts.
Love this video idea! Videos about niche/useless moves or items are fun.
A funny set is room service contrary Enamorous-I, somewhat successful in 3v3 for the surprise factor.
Flutter Mane: Look what they did just to mimic a fraction of our power.
i loved running iron ball trick prankster in gen 8 uu
removes their ground immunity, halves their speed, takes away their item and they can still get statused including para
it could be used to stop boosted pokemon that wouldve swept your team
The Crippler Klefki strat
1:02 sneasler aged like milk
Was expecting this about practically useless items
Like utility umbrella which has only ever seen 1 singular use case and that was in ubers
some dittos ran quick claw in vgc 16 to try and avoid a speed tie against xerneas while not having to be choice locked
Between the Pinkacross ev spread video and the mention of fling big nugget, looks like emvee is going big mode. A dynamax from the lord himself.
i would like a part 2, there so many weird hold items left. The Float Stone is a strong contender for that
There was this one baton pass team in either ORAS/SM that would use Lansat Berry Scolipede passing into Mega Heracross, logic being with all its multihit moves it had good odds to crit it's way through stuff especially with an SD up, which may seem overkill but made a difference vs stuff like Clefable, definitely wasn't the most popular version of BP by a mile but it did exist for a bit!
Don't forget sigylyph (I don't remember how to write it) with flame orb. What a unique pokemon
Rowap Berry so vague he wasnt even mentioned in a vague items list
lansat berry was """good""" on dragon dance harvest tropius gimick sets with natural gift when the move was still around. it gave you a decent flying stab and boosted the crit chance of your leaf blade (and other moves) all in one, and harvest meant you could use it multiple times. So not totally useless!
While not items that necessarily belong on this video, I find light bulb pikachu and eviolite friend guard Clefairy to provide some interesting niches.
the Ninetales Tyranitar image speaks to my soul
Room Service Palkia in VGC 2022 went hard tho
Starf swellow the beloved
A personal dumb *if not just underrated..* item of mine, is Custap Berry!
Makes your mon move first in the speed bracket when you're under 25% of your health, and activates at the START of the turn after you reach 25% health (when you use a move), this means that you can - as an example of course - run Endure on calyrex-s and oranguru with sash, oranguru has inner focus and cannot be flinched.
Trick room oranguru of course, and if its still alive, calyrex-s is guaranteed to be alive- use instruct + astral barrage!
Custap forces Calyrex-S to move FIRST in the speed bracket, which is reversed in TR - he does not care and moves first anyways. Instruct happens *after* he uses astral barrage, letting him use it again :)
Obviously, priority moves are a bitch. This does not give priority +1, 2, whatever- it simply forces them to move first.
*However I think this is still blocked by psychic terrain for some reason?? But I'll have to do some testing on that.*
Umbreon, trick, ring target, Synchronoise.
Nuff said
Shoutout to the dumb item grip claw, for making that one Volcanion set just that little bit more better against stall at the cost of being worse against everything else
Lagging Tail can also be useful on my favorite bad gimmick set... Prankster Lagging Tail Grafaiai, with Copycat and Dig. dig moves last, then prankster copycat moves first and copies your own dig -- making you invulnerable! as long as they dont have any priority moves... or earthquake....... or a non-scarfed flying type to stall you out...........
Set it with Gravity Farigiraf if you're in doubles, and tera Grafaiai to Grass or Bug to have a chance to resist Earthquake
I tried running the item metronome on an echoed voice pixilate sylveon back in the day. Didn’t really work out because I was 13 and my opponents had brains, but on paper it sounds like a decent idea
Lansat berry raising crit chance could be combined with stuff like nightslash and slash to almost guarunty a crit but there are probably better options for sure. Starf sounds like a funny thing to do. Surprised King's rock isn't mentioned given the paraflinch strats it opens the door to even further than a pokemon with serene grace and moves like iron head. What would be really funny is introducing an item that can do anything randomly as long as its not an attacking move and now imagine clefairy metronome battles with said item.
Razor Claw/Scope Lens actually sees usage on Archaludon and Regidrago. After a Focus Energy, all you moves are guaranteed to be critical hits, so they can spam 1.5x damage Draco Meteor like there's no tomorrow without caring about things like Parting Shot or Eerie Impulse.
Flame orb has the additional usefulness of making your guts facade user burnt, don't think that was mentioned. I don't follow singles but it''s used a bunch in VGC.
Come to think of it, whatever happened to Salac Berry and the other stat boosting berries? I see them all the time in Gen 3 movesets, but barely anywhere else. Were they simply powercrept?
The short answer is that there's a lot more mons to deal with, so you can't prepare for specific rolls that would get you into pinch range. Also Booster Energy makes it so all paradox pokémon have a better option.
Flame orb and Toxic orb can also be used with guts, poison heal, facade
I think the problem with berries is that most abilities that use them feel... inconclusive. Like sure harvest is cool, but you kinda want to procc these berries sooner. But gluttony doesn't let you have more berries unless you use recycle.Or the berries don't give that much unless you have cud chew, or they don't heal a lot unless you have cheek pouch. It really feels like the berry-abilities are a lot weaker than they could realistically be, the most significant berry users I can think of is figy berry gluttony Snorlax and Linoone in S/M back when it restored 50% hp.
This is just making me go back to the Regieleki nicknames Lightning McQueen picture where bro says Kachow and used agility three times before tricked by rotom revealing choice scarf 😂😂😂
There's actually a niche use for enigma berry, you can give it to a bulky psychic setting up cosmic powers (or iron defense etc.) with like stored power and body press (mew, necrozma etc.) and if ypu get hit by knock off you still heal the 25% because the effectiveness is checked before the item gets removed, just like weakness policy, no other item, no sitrus, no lefties, no pinch berry can heal you after being knocked off
Flame Orb is also useful on drifblim to activate Flare Boost.
And to also remind you that Pokemon gave the blimp Pokemon FLARE Boost as a lovely reminder of the Hindenburg disaster.
Running no items also weakens knock off against you and makes you immune to poltergeist. In some cases (esp in low tiers infested with physical ghost types) it is better for defensive ghost weak pokemon to forgo an item just to turn their matchup against physical ghosts on its head.
gotta put sticky barb / black sludge magic guard on this list as well. trick the item onto an unsuspecting mon and watch as they take chip. pretty cool
The "useless" berries were made so we had a shot at pokerogue infinite mode
the only time i used a razor fang/kings rock for the flinch chance was when i used a skill link cinccino... eventually i just swapped it for a choice band which seemed more useful
Razor Claw isn't luck-based if combined with Focus Energy, as that brings you up to +3 crit or 100% crit chance. If used on a 'mon with "Sniper" it's actually not terrible....Draco Meteor Kingdra is actually pretty fun (since stat drops don't affect crits). Of course, the Scope Lens is the same deal.
IDK about your thoughts on razor claw. It's a great item for mons with increased crit rate moves, or dragon types that have been boosted thru dragon cheer. It can allow mons to always crit and avoid the spa drop of draco meteor and hit thru screens. I think your underrating that item a bit. It's niche but not useless.
The berries are probably so bad because they're more of a trophy for completing battle challenges (Battle Tower, etc) or a fun bonus for distribution events instead of items intended to actually see use. If they were actually good, then it'd feel mandatory for players to complete these really long and grueling battle challenges (some of which are in spin-off games, which means spending more money on additional consoles/games) or attending distributions in order to stay on par with the competition. This way, they're just kind of fun to have around. (Although I think some of the gen 3 berries are really good for Pokeblocks.)
Also worth mention, running no item weakens Knock Off. Not ideal, but still technically something.
Til there actually is a difference between the iron ball and lagging tail.
flame orb is mostly used on pokemon with "guts" ability which gives them 50% boost on pysical attacks.
Playing Gen 3 ROM hack that have Berserk Gene available. Works nicely with Own Tempo or if Misty Terrain is up. Now that I've thought about it, I should try it on an Unburden poke.
That one time I used Scizor without an item in a draft so it could always live +2 knock off from Bisharp.
Utility umbrella negates the effect of weather on the opponent's moves targeting you and is used by Blissey to wall Kyogre
Lagging Tail - Tailwind - U-Turn - Corviknight is one of my favorite sets in current OU. Lol.
I approve of Quick Claw Torkoal, but only for the mental image.
quick claw torkoal is SPEED! 🐢🔥
Out of curiosity, wouldn't Enigma Berry have a very niche use on like.. Dragonite for example? (And Terapagos)
Supereffective attack deals less than 50%, so it deals roughly 25% after multiscale, then Dragonite is healed back to full, recovering the multiscale.
With a sitrus berry, you take the 25%, then 50% bringing you down to 25%, then you heal back to 50%, then you die.
But with an enigma berry, you get to 75, then 75, then 25, and then you die, letting you tank an additional hit you wouldn't have normally with Sitrus berry, as Sitrus berry does not heal you above 50%.
I use the Enigma berry for a slightly different use. I use it on Shedinja so if you don't get an idiot noob as your opponent and you don't outspeed, you essentially get a free hit. Combo this with EV trained Speed & Attack, and you can outspeed anybody not specifically meant to be a speedy sweeper and hopefully get a good hit in. It does struggle with tanks a little bit though, unless you've got super effective STAB which... isn't too common when facing tanks 😅
edit: forgot to mention: if you could build a Baton Pass team with Shedinja as your sweeper, that could potentially be really effective with Enigma berry as a free hit
Flame orb is prob the best item for pokemon with the guts as an ability. Burn's attack down does not work for guts mons. And you will still get max atk boost for them. I am sure that it is not just undoing the burn. The only other item that is used with guts mons is toxic orb, which is the same but with poison, and in this case, if an enemy mon has venoshock, you will be in a huge risk. I don't remember any fire-type move that doubles in power against burnt targets. Though maybe I just forgot.
Flame Orb can be used to activate Guts, no?
Call me Mr. late but people liked trick ring target Grim in Sw/Sh for things like Caly-Shadow and Eleki (was it good? No not really)
man it feels bad seeing a fling big nugget emvee joke after what he did came up...
But when will the meta adapt to Enamorus-Incarnate running Cute Charm by having your own guaranteed male Genie hold the Destiny Knot?
flame orb is used with guts and not useless at all in vgc same with toxicorb
shout out to *scope* *lens* focus energy hydreigon for actually being a genuinely threatening mon in gen 9 reg A VGC. i also cooked a little with razor claw ceruledge in that format, as a way to win the bulk up war vs annihilape w/ 50% shadow claw crits
Something about berserk gene for people who plays Pokémon Natdex Draft on Pokémon showdown. It is a legal item in the format and if you have Misty terrain Tapu Fini or Weezing Galar, the +2 attack will be triggered while not being confused. Slap that onto an unburden Mon like sneasler or hitmonlee (need to be grounded rip hawlucha) you get a Mon that’s +2 attack and +2 speed on switch in. 😊 Do whatever you wish with this information.
They were too afraid to let Bug Gem and Lokix exist in the same generation