Espeon and Godzilla - a Love Story

[Deoxys Prime]

Ruleset: Rated Wi-Fi Singles (~1550 rating)

Background Information:
I'm relatively bad at competitive battling. I entered tournaments and such when I was younger but I never did too well. I love battling anyway though. Here's a battle that had me shaking. Keep in mind that I'm pretty bad/rusty and often make very bad decisions. This is one of my first few competitive battles since Gen 6 came out (I last did a competitive battle in Gen 4.)

You can watch it with this code in the Vs. Recorder: KPVG-WWWW-WWW2-GNJN (As of 11/4/2013)


Teams:
Mine:

Opponent's:

Turn 1:
Go Tyranitar!
Go Pangoro!
Pangoro breaks the mold!
Tyranitar's Sand Stream whipped up a sandstorm!
Come back Tyranitar!
Go Garchomp!
Pangoro used Hammer Arm! (Garchomp at 91/184 HP)
Pangoro is buffeted by the sandstorm!

My Tyranitar is scared to death of any physical user of Fighting type attacks. He's more like a pile of sand instead of a mountain in that case. Pulling him back was the only sensible option.


Turn 2:
Garchomp Mega Evolved into Mega Garchomp!
Garchomp used Earthquake! (Pangoro at ~5% HP remaining)
Pangoro used Hammer Arm! (Garchomp at 10/184 HP)
Pangoro's Speed fell!
Pangoro is buffeted by the sandstorm!
Pangoro fainted!
Go Heliolisk!

Score: 3-2
Sand Force Mega Garchomp had enough sheer power to nearly OHKO 95/78 base Defense off of STAB alone. If I was running Adamant instead of Jolly I would have outrun Pangoro anyway and may have killed him without the help of the sandstorm.


Turn 3:
Heliolisk used Hidden Power! (Garchomp KO'd)
Garchomp fainted!
Go Espeon!
Heliolisk was buffeted by the sandstorm!

Score: 2-2
I thought it best to use Garchomp to buy a turn here rather than switch Espeon in and potentially get killed before setting up both screens. I still don't know exactly what type of Hidden Power it was - it was likely Ice. Losing Garchomp this early in the game was bad news for me because Garchomp is my biggest damage dealer by a very large margin.


Turn 4:
Espeon used Light Screen!
Heliolisk used Thunderbolt! (Espeon at 134/172)
Espeon is buffeted by the sandstorm! (Espeon at 124/172)
Heliolisk is buffeted by the sandstorm!

I didn't know how big of a threat Heliolisk was but I did know that Heliolisk was a Special Attacker at least. It made logical sense to put up Light Screen first. I had fought one Heliolisk before but I still needed to fight more to really understand what people were doing with it.


Turn 5:
Espeon used Reflect!
Heliolisk used Thunderbolt! (Espeon at 85/172)
Espeon was paralyzed! It may be unable to move!
The sandstorm subsided.

In a moment of greed, I nearly immediately switched back to Tyranitar, only thinking of landing a killer Earthquake to remove Heliolisk. However, Heliolisk was simply continuing to tickle Espeon with minor damage. It's not wise to give up an opportunity to set up Reflect if you don't know what the opponent's last Pokemon is.


Turn 6:
Come back Espeon!
Go Tyranitar!
Tyranitar's Sand Stream whipped up a sandstorm!
Heliolisk used Focus Blast! (Tyranitar at 163/207)
Heliolisk is buffeted by the sandstorm!

The other player smartly anticipated my switch, but probably didn't expect Tyranitar to just eat that Focus Blast without even breaking a sweat. That said, I didn't expect it either. I'm used to Focus Blast OHKOing or 2HKOing Tyranitar most of the time. 5HKOing your opponent with a 4x super effective move? Tyranitar truly was an immovable object when it came to special attackers.


Turn 7:
Heliolisk used Thunder Wave!
Tyranitar is paralyzed! It can't move!
Heliolisk is buffeted by the sandstorm!

My opponent realized that Focus Blast was going to continue to hit for some tiny, paltry amount of damage. He went for the Thunder Wave in hopes of wearing down Tyranitar in the long run. I immediately can't move and begin to feel that wave of hopelessness one gets when it seems that the gods have deigned that you do not deserve a victory.


Turn 8:
Heliolisk used Focus Blast! (Tyranitar at 119/207)
Tyranitar used Earthquake!
Heliolisk fainted!
Go Charizard!

Score: 2-1
I managed to clear out Heliolisk without too much more trouble.


Turn 9:
Charizard evolved into Mega Charizard X!
Charizard used Dragon Dance!
Tyranitar used Stone Edge!
The opposing Charizard avoided the attack!
Charizard is buffeted by the sandstorm!

Stone Edge, true to the name people use here, had proven to be Stone Miss. Was Tyranitar going to get dropped next turn? Paralyzed? Stone Miss? I was in a panic after that first miss.

Turn 10:
Charizard used Outrage! (Tyranitar at 11/207)
Tyranitar used Stone Edge!
Charizard fainted!

Reflect saves the day! Tyranitar held on by the skin of his teeth and managed to hit through both paralysis and Stone Edge's mediocre accuracy, winning me the game.

Score: 2-0

End Game - Final Score: 2-0, my win.



What to take away:
Tyranitar:
Wow. That was some serious tenacity. Tyranitar barely hung on and it was only thanks to the dual screens support and Assault Vest that he managed to live long enough to end the game. This battle really showcases the power of Assault Vest and has convinced me that I should continue to use it and try it on new Pokemon too.

Garchomp:
I feel like I played Garchomp wrong, but thanks to Megachomp's extra bulk he survived Pangoro's second Hammer Arm and managed to KO the biggest threat to Tyranitar on the team. I should plan better than simply thinking, "Oh, if I run Tyranitar I should clearly run Garchomp to abuse Megachomp's Sand Force." I really lost out on defensive typing here.

Espeon:
Oh blessed dual screens - how I now love you. This was my first game using support Espeon and I'm glad I did. Even though all Espeon did was set up screens - it won me the game by almost nothing. I will certainly use Espeon in the future. I'd much prefer to run Espeon in a 6v6 environment though.


Personal Feelings: (Feel free to skip this, it's a bit of a ramble.)
I feel like I had a statistically superior team and that if I had chosen better defensive typing and coverage moves I probably would have done better. This wasn't bad for my first night of rating battles though (especially considering the last time I battled online was in Gen 4.) I need to acclimate to a competitive environment and get used to the way people make decisions. Time and experience should make this better though.

What did I do wrong? I may have been able to KO Megazard with Earthquake, but on that first turn it was still Flying type and I couldn't be sure if it was going to become Megazard Y (which I expected because Heliolisk can have Solar Power.) And even after it became Megazard X I doubted that Earthquake could kill it considering it lacked STAB from Tyranitar. However, EQ was the safer choice over Stone miss. I was also lucky that Garchomp got 3HKO'd by Pangoro. If he was lost one hit sooner I probably would have lost the game. I think this says to me that I ought to restructure my team.


In the end, I really found myself to love Espeon so much more. That Light Screen and Reflect enabled Tyranitar to survive by the skin of his teeth and win me the game.

Oh, and by the way - please tell me if this is poorly formatted or hard to read since this is my first Warstory. I'd really like to make this an enjoyable read for you guys.

 

[SergantGold]

While I am (personally) enamored with the formatting, it wasn't necessarily a long or very interesting battle. I think you should try playing on pokemon showdown, as the 6v6 battles can get very fun and very intense and it seems (in my opinion) that you could do well.

 

[superstar]

Hey man, cool to see some 3v3 action here. The battle was nice, but a warstory should have commentary after most (if not every) turn explaining your thought processes. I promise to read it a bit more in depth if you add that

 

[Deoxys Prime]

Hey man, cool to see some 3v3 action here. The battle was nice, but a warstory should have commentary after most (if not every) turn explaining your thought processes. I promise to read it a bit more in depth if you add that

Alright, I can do that. I don't really know what the norm is so I appreciate you telling me.

 

[Aberrant17]

I loved the post-game analysis ("what to take away" and "personal feelings"). It's always nice to see a bit of self-reflection from the author, talking about what he and his opponent did right and wrong, what worked and what didn't. It had a nice personal touch that put the reader in your shoes, especially when you talked about Espeon.

Sadly, those same qualities are absent throughout the warstory up until that point. You need to hook your readers and keep them engaged: make us feel like we are there watching the game as it unfolds, and we need more insight into your thought processes and your reactions to certain developments. What ultimately led to your decision to set up Reflect? Did you panic when you saw Focus Blast coming your way? These are the kinds of questions that need to be answered. Remember that you're telling a *story*, a narrative. Try checking out a few threads from the Warstory Archive, you'll get the idea.

 

[Deoxys Prime]

I loved the post-game analysis ("what to take away" and "personal feelings"). It's always nice to see a bit of self-reflection from the author, talking about what he and his opponent did right and wrong, what worked and what didn't. It had a nice personal touch that put the reader in your shoes, especially when you talked about Espeon.

Sadly, those same qualities are absent throughout the warstory up until that point. You need to hook your readers and keep them engaged: make us feel like we are there watching the game as it unfolds, and we need more insight into your thought processes and your reactions to certain developments. What ultimately led to your decision to set up Reflect? Did you panic when you saw Focus Blast coming your way? These are the kinds of questions that need to be answered. Remember that you're telling a *story*, a narrative. Try checking out a few threads from the Warstory Archive, you'll get the idea.

I guess I can see where you're coming from. Many warstories have a lot of character to them from line one and continue to share direct insight from the author (oftentimes along with some wit) right up until the very end. I'll see if I can share some more in this warstory. Some time has passed so it might end up sounding just a little artificial. I'll keep it all in mind should I ever post another one too. I appreciate the criticism.

 

[BuddhaSmite]

Not bad at all (I only read the updated version; apparently you added in some commentary after the fact). 3v3 generally doesn't make for a great warstory, imo, but this one was close at least, so...

Analysis was pretty good, considering you didn't have much to work with. Format was very nice as well, although pics would have helped.

My major gripe with this is that Charizard did not use Earthquake at the end, which I believe would have likely won the battle. Outrage is 180 power after STAB, but Earthquake was a 200 power hit. Earthquake is the standard on Charizard X, so either your opponent was running a different set (which cost him), or he badly misplayed. Not to mention: is there any point at all in setting up 1v1? Flat out attacking would have been better.

Another gripe, although minor, is that there was hardly any prediction or switching aside from the first turn. Now, I don't fault you for that, as a 3v3 battle doesn't leave a ton of room for switching anyways, but this battle was almost revolutionary war style: line up, take turns taking shots, whoever is left standing wins.

Still, look forward to future warstories from you.

 

[SnapDrake_Games]

On at least 95% of these war stories, there's always at least a few comments critiquing the war story as boring. I write war stories, try to think up unique strategies, and am basically here to entertain. So would someone PLEASE tell me what their definition of "exciting" is.

 

[Deoxys Prime]

Not bad at all (I only read the updated version; apparently you added in some commentary after the fact). 3v3 generally doesn't make for a great warstory, imo, but this one was close at least, so...

Analysis was pretty good, considering you didn't have much to work with. Format was very nice as well, although pics would have helped.

My major gripe with this is that Charizard did not use Earthquake at the end, which I believe would have likely won the battle. Outrage is 180 power after STAB, but Earthquake was a 200 power hit. Earthquake is the standard on Charizard X, so either your opponent was running a different set (which cost him), or he badly misplayed. Not to mention: is there any point at all in setting up 1v1? Flat out attacking would have been better.

Another gripe, although minor, is that there was hardly any prediction or switching aside from the first turn. Now, I don't fault you for that, as a 3v3 battle doesn't leave a ton of room for switching anyways, but this battle was almost revolutionary war style: line up, take turns taking shots, whoever is left standing wins.

Still, look forward to future warstories from you.

Thanks for the analysis. I'm not an especially good competitive battler and I'd wanted to share a game that had me really on edge. I do suppose that most 3v3 games are very short-lived and are generally not worth sharing. I'll see if I can get a 6v6 battle for next time because I definitely agree that there is more to work with there.

 

[lucky_charles]

What's the EV spread of your Tyranitar, if you don't mind sharing.

Very interesting read though! It kept me entertained during a night class haha

 

[Deoxys Prime]

What's the EV spread of your Tyranitar, if you don't mind sharing.

Very interesting read though! It kept me entertained during a night class haha

It has a relatively simple spread of 252 HP, 252 SpD, and 6 Att. I run Adamant though.

 

[Mariachi Duck]

Short and sweet - was worth the read, liked the thought process/analysis that was included.

My major gripe with this is that Charizard did not use Earthquake at the end, which I believe would have likely won the battle. Outrage is 180 power after STAB, but Earthquake was a 200 power hit. Earthquake is the standard on Charizard X, so either your opponent was running a different set (which cost him), or he badly misplayed. Not to mention: is there any point at all in setting up 1v1? Flat out attacking would have been better.

As for this, do not forget that Outrage is boosted 20% by Tough Claws, while Earthquake, being a Non-Contact Move, is not. That means that Outrage has about 16 more BP than SE Earthquake, after STAB and TC boosts; it is only worthwhile to use Earthquake if Outrage would be resisted (Steel Types) of if they have a Fairy they could switch to for free momentum (immunity). I also don't know why he bothered using Dragon Dance against a Paralyzed Tyranitar. Two Outrages would have won the game in this scenario.