Battle Tree Discussion and Records

No TR teams opt for minimum defense. One of the entire perks is that you can invest heavily in bulk without losing the speed advantage once the move is used.

Josh's Magnezone is EV'd that way to outspeed and destroy a number of threats on the opening turn, without needing TR in play. This includes a lot of slow water types as well as enemies that can badly injure Oranguru. Magnezone still has very poor overall speed, so it'll still outrun most of its enemies afterward.

All of the teams on the front page are links leading to elaborate writeups for each one. Clicking on Josh's TR team will bring you to his post, where he explains all of his EV spreads. That will do a better job than one of us trying to paraphrase.
 
Ah damn why did I write opt for min defense?

Of course min Speed. Well yeah I read it but I simply cannot imagine that killing a few mons in the first turn is better than overall speed in TR and as it is a TR team he will use TR all the time. Yeah ok - he got so far with that team so it MUST be the right tactic or at least not wrong, but when I did my TR Teams in GEN V and IV they are all completely down to min Speed.

I mean if you want to be in TR 100% of the time then I guess you should focus on maxing your pokes there and get the highest speed tier. It was just the way I tried - but I dont wanna say he should have done it in another way as he got so far. I'm just still wondering that it is paying out x)
 
[...]Ok as I was never used to the mechanics at level 50 I am asking myself if this has already been in the last generations (Gen IV Battle Tower / Gen V Battle Subway) like this (that you get +1 with 4 EVs at the start), because I never saw anything like this ... it was always used to do 4 + 252 + 252 or something like that and it was also Level-50-Combatting
Yes, it has already been like that in Gen IV


Normally I had TR Teams in the battle challenges which were totally opted for min defense. But his Team members kind of slow outside of TR and even kind of slow inside of TR. Magnezone is completely not down to its minimum Speed and therefore slow in TR, being slow in TR nevertheless as it is not too slow outside of it. Also Mimigma is fully opted for Init, wouldn't that be bad in TR? I can understand that Mimigma is a little bit outstanding here, but why is Magnezone so medium slow? I mean you could say *to kill special enemies outside of TR* but with that argumentation ANY TR team would have had only medium-speed members in the past. But in my eyes you do the complete slow way or the complete fast O: Can anyone tell why its like that?
Are you sure the person opted for min defense? Min speed would make more sense as we're dealing with a Trick Room Team.
The fact that Mimigma has max speed isn't really surprising. It's to outspeed and possibly eleminate Tapu Lele before it can attack one of your Pkm with its strong psychic moves, I think. With Mimikyu, you wouldn't be too reliant on Trick Room.
 
Well yeah I read it but I simply cannot imagine that killing a few mons in the first turn is better than overall speed in TR and as it is a TR team he will use TR all the time. Yeah ok - he got so far with that team so it MUST be the right tactic or at least not wrong, but when I did my TR Teams in GEN V and IV they are all completely down to min Speed.
The thing is, the first turn is so important that the less you leave to chance, the better.

Take Barbaracle for example. Sniper Stone Edge has an 81% chance to OHKO Oranguru on a crit. It holds a Razor Claw, and due to the updated crit mechanics, there's a 50% chance of landing one if the move connects. Magnezone outspeeds and easily slaughters it before that dice roll can even take place. While Magnezone is going to be faster than Slowbro regardless, it's another example of something that you want to OHKO immediately, lest it attempt to set TR itself, or use an annoying move like Blizzard.

I run minimum speed, myself, but it comes at the cost of reliability. Without heavy support like Fake Out, I can find myself at a disadvantage. Josh wanted to mitigate some of that.
 
In general, TR teams need to also be able to function without TR to some extends.
Neither Oranguru nor Aromatisse (the premiere setters as far as tree goes) can survive *everything*, and both can be KOd by focus fire or crits. Therefore, being able to snipe out specific threats, or reaching certain speed tiers for Instruct, can dictate apparently weird EV sets.
My own only TR team on leadeboard in fact lost exactly like that if you read my analysis, specifically *exactly* to the lead i said it was an autoloss, Inner Focus Bisharp + Drapion lead from Grimsley which prevented TR from going up, and the team simply got run down.

The example Repto provided fits quite nicely: in the event of a lead that can either underspeed & threaten the team with KO or status under TR, or flat out KO the setter due to the negative priority of TR, the lead needs to be able to deal with it, or the backline to react to the event of non-settable TR without it spelling an automatic loss.

It's why when you craft a doubles team for Tree, you never 100% commit to one strategy: you don't just put in a setter and 3 < 40 base speed mons with no priority or stalling potential, you don't use a rain setter + 3 swift swimmers, etc :)
Backup plans are important.
 
Ok and can you tell me something about the new AI?

Because in the list there are Teams with Aron. And yeah I know myself from Battle Subway, getting TR off is the critical point. But what I read is that Aron lvl 1 is a 100% magnet, so why does it not work here anymore ? (at least I assume it, as Aron is not getting a high streak)

Also back in the Battle Subway where I only battled I even had a pseudo-lvl-1-Endeavour Team. Normally you would say: Ah lvl-1-endeavour is dead, but I had my TR Leads:

Galladelvl 50 (Macho Brace)
Sunkern lvl 50 (focus sash)

And the AI is ALWAYS targeting Sunkern x) Even when he would have ghost moves, he goes for Sunkern. The only downside of Sunkern lvl 50 was that a full-hp-endeavour is not dragging HP to like 10, but Gallade is strong enough to kill most foes with close combat anyways after.
This was just my team what made me set all my pokes at min speed, because it was also working like the GEN IV Endeavour TR.

(Only 2 times in like 200x Staraptor targeted Gallade with brave bird ...)
 
There's mainly 2 reasons for which level 1 baits aren't AS perfect anymore.

The AI got changed to simply prefer 1hkos. If the AI can 1hko both lead, you can't predict which one it'll go for.

The AI also has some semblance of planning, as in if one of its pokes can 1hko one of yours, it often will not double target.

In fact if the AI has a lead that can 1hko your setter, there's the possibility it will go for the KO for the setter while the other will try to KO the bait.

To this you add the fact that there's a lot more strong spread move users, Mold Breaker is a thing, there are megas and Zmoves, status spammers are everywhere, etc.

The AI also has its own TR specialists, several < 30 base speed pokes like Escavalier or Mega Abomasnow which will underspeed your own pokes, as well as scary Quick Claw users (exp Drampa-3 / Incineroar-4), hail setters, sand setters, etc etc, which can still kill your bait level 1 at same time as your setter.

So the level 1 sturdy bait is not a guaranteed "AI will target this for 3 turns while I am free to do whatever".

Which is why there's only a handful of comps (In fact I believe only a couple) featuring Aron or similar baits.
 
The AI also has its own TR specialists, several < 30 base speed pokes like Escavalier or Mega Abomasnow which will underspeed your own pokes, as well as scary Quick Claw users (exp Drampa-3 / Incineroar-4), hail setters, sand setters, etc etc, which can still kill your bait level 1 at same time as your setter.
Believe it or not, none of the Scientists or Breeders can have Abomasnow. Kind of strange considering they DO use Frost Rotom and some other things really not geared for TR, like Chandelure. I was initially impressed that a lot of the things I liked to use were popping up. But I digress.

If you do encounter a mega it’ll more than likely be Slowbro, because it’s the only mega to show up in every single Set3/4 user to focus on TR. Steelix, Aggron, Camerupt and Audino appear on a couple of them. Those two hikers are a rare exception in that they run every setter in the tree (which is more than the individual Scientists and Breeders can have) and most rock/grounds, so you can potentially see mega Garchomp or Tyranitar with TR afoot.

Yeah, I’ve... spent some time looking into this since the original SM. If the Gen 8 male looks acceptable my IGN will prolly be Stein; otherwise it’s back to Mara, the OG.

Unrelated question: previous gens, most pokes not considered legends were simply divided amongst "Set A" and "Set B" and the trainers with no overlaying theme just had really large rosters of 80+ potential enemies to choose from. Going off of TRE's dump, a lot of pokes, among them Abomasnow, appear on extremely few teams. Abomasnow for example has five Set3 appearances and only four Set4 appearances, one of which being Sina, whom I can never face because I'm playing UM.

Other random pokes are not quite as rare, such as Manectric appearing on 11/8 teams respectively, but this is still much less common than previous gens where everything was drawn from two pools. It could reasonably be assumed that this was done because of the widespread use of Set3s past battle 40, but I'm wondering if there's maybe Set A through F/G/Whatever or if that system was done away with entirely. It does feel like there are more specialized trainers compared to last gen, but I'm going entirely off of confirmation bias here. If I happen to face three fire types and a grass, I naturally assume it was a sun or primary elements team, regardless if that's really the case.
 
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Smuckem

Resident Facility Bot Wannabe
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
Also back in the Battle Subway where I only battled I even had a pseudo-lvl-1-Endeavour Team. Normally you would say: Ah lvl-1-endeavour is dead, but I had my TR Leads:

Galladelvl 50 (Macho Brace)
Sunkern lvl 50 (focus sash)

And the AI is ALWAYS targeting Sunkern x) Even when he would have ghost moves, he goes for Sunkern. The only downside of Sunkern lvl 50 was that a full-hp-endeavour is not dragging HP to like 10, but Gallade is strong enough to kill most foes with close combat anyways after.
This was just my team what made me set all my pokes at min speed, because it was also working like the GEN IV Endeavour TR.

(Only 2 times in like 200x Staraptor targeted Gallade with brave bird ...)
You MUST come onto the Subway thread and talk more about this sometime: Sunkern has never been featured on any leaderboards, I don't think Gallade has ever made the Subway leaderboard, and this just sounds insane.
 
As loudly as I cry for Triples to return, doing random doubles in the tree is still pretty fun... a different beast from the Subway, that's for sure. I had already lost my streak at 21; laughably pitiful in any context but my loss was more RNG fuckery than anything else. I rolled three ice types in the batch, so I decided to try a little hail team, but a combination of two fire types and a little shithead named Mawile got a Quick Claw proc, killing the only poke able to destroy both it and Arcanine, and I was checkmated. I'll give the team a second chance because the loss felt extremely BS driven even if ice teams are among the least viable :/

Since rolling four pokes and using only those four would only seem to make me that much more likely to fail right away, I roll six flunkies on top of the setter and mega, as well as a couple from the alt box, and from those pick six for the battle box. If the team isn't playing to my liking, I quit after five rounds and try using a different group among the six chosen.

If nothing else, it was the first time I got to try Alolan Golem, and I love it. Eats bulky waters for breakfast and in stark contrast to many electric types, it has a pretty good movepool outside its STAB.

I like to chronicle these just to remember what I rolled and lost to, so hopefully the next attempt will at least make it to 30. What a sorry file this one made :P
 
You MUST come onto the Subway thread and talk more about this sometime: Sunkern has never been featured on any leaderboards, I don't think Gallade has ever made the Subway leaderboard, and this just sounds insane.
XD yes well it was the best TR Team in my eyes when I was playing the Subway - sure I will post it, but I think I should at first try to get a long streak with it, so it will be connected to a number. I also saw no (Pseudo-Lvl-1-)Endeavour Team so I guess it's kind of unique and it's strong enough for sure to get some place I hope.
 
Tree actually allows level 1 mons, there's a couple on the leaderboards, one with Aron, and I believe Turskain beein experimenting with lvl 1 Togedemaru atm
 
I just lost in battle 48 with this stupid team. I went in without all of the team members EV'd fully appropriately and just kept going until I lost...I wanted to see how far I could get using Butterfree. I lost to a Trick Room team when I used Fake Out on the lead Rotom and Cresselia set up TR. I knew it was probably a mistake; should've either used Fake Out on Cresselia or put it to sleep instead of setting up the unnecessary Tailwind. I didn't save the video.

Pretty much all the battles before the loss were very easy, so I rarely had to bring in my back line. I'm going to re-EV Butterfree so it's not wasting EVs on speed and replace Medicham with an Adamant one that has a bunch more bulk (and a bit more power) and Psycho Cut bred onto it. Struggle Bug can be helpful sometimes, but I've found it to be a luxury more than anything, so any suggestions for a useful replacement are welcome. (I'm also going to take the SpA EVs off Butterfree.) I also plan on replacing Swords Dance with Protect on Garchomp and Rock Slide with either Stone Edge or a different-type move like Poison Jab...suggestions welcome there too, and on a different item potentially. The SpD investment for Kartana is almost not even worth it, but I'm using the Focus Sash on Butterfree anyway.

The back-line EV spreads are meant to outspeed everything but that one Aerodactyl set with Tailwind up. The team has some obvious drawbacks. If Tailwind somehow fails to get up when necessary or TR goes up it's a bad situation, but the combination of Fake Out and nearly fully accurate Sleep Powder should make such situations very rare.

I'm mainly posting to see if anyone has any ideas that haven't occurred to me, including for different things to use in the back. It would be cool to get something like Butterfree on the leaderboard, so I want to optimize the team before I go back in.

The team:
Butterfree
Ability: Compound Eyes
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Tailwind
- Struggle Bug
- Rage Powder

Medicham-Mega @ Medichamite
Ability: Pure Power
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out
- Ice Punch
- Drain Punch
- Zen Headbutt

Kartana @ Assault Vest
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 244 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Sacred Sword
- Leaf Blade
- Smart Strike

Garchomp @ Rockium Z
Ability: Rough Skin
Level: 50
EVs: 188 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 60 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Rock Slide
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
 
Mad respect you for trying with Butterfree :D

As for the comp. I'll say one thing: AV Kartana is bad. Don't run it. If anything run Focus sash or the Z-crystal, and use LO on Garchomp instead.

For proper theorymonning if you are serious about it you should probably drop by the discord so we can check it with the others.
 
Mad respect you for trying with Butterfree :D

As for the comp. I'll say one thing: AV Kartana is bad. Don't run it. If anything run Focus sash or the Z-crystal, and use LO on Garchomp instead.

For proper theorymonning if you are serious about it you should probably drop by the discord so we can check it with the others.
Haha thanks. The combination of Tailwind and almost 100% accurate Sleep Powder is actually pretty solid. I would definitely give Kartana the Focus Sash but it feels pretty necessary for Butterfree because it's so damn frail. The other factor is that I'm trying to take advantage of not having to max out Kartana's speed...either I put the available EVs into SpD and use the AV or I get kind of a negligible benefit from them. (Of course, I could always replace Kartana with something else.)

I'm heading out but maybe I'll check out the discord later...honestly I don't know the Tree sets that well and don't bother to do calcs, etc., like the more serious people in the thread, but trying to get overlooked stuff like Butterfree on the board is a pretty fun challenge.
 
Well, I'm afraid that if you aim to get Butterfree (or really anything) on the leaderboard, knowledge of sets and mechanics and proper teambuilding are not an option.

Luck can only get you so far when passing battle 50 you start to run into plenty of megas and full legendary team comps.
 

boxofkangaroos

this is the day of the expanding man
While we're at it with Bug/Flying types, I made it to 78, my personal best, with this beautiful team:


Mickey (Lucario-Mega) @ Lucarionite
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Meteor Mash
- Extreme Speed

The lead. It can often sweep teams with or without Swords Dance using its extremely strong STAB moves and a juicy priority move in Extreme Speed. I thought Mega Lucario would be especially fun to play around with in USUM with the addition of Meteor Mash to its movepool, and Mickey here proved me right.


Rosanna (Yanmega) @ Life Orb
Ability: Speed Boost
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Protect
- Bug Buzz
- Air Slash
- Giga Drain

The bug. I got it while shiny hunting in Ultra Wormholes, and I knew I wanted to use it for some sort of competitive purpose. I randomly picked it out of my PC box when assembling this Battle Tree team and it did not disappoint. Yanmega is just a fast, hard-hitting monster that can easily outspeed opponents with Speed Boost. Its coverage is somewhat mediocre, but it thrived when paired with its two teammates.


Barney (Garchomp) @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang

The purple dinosaur. Barney here has great typing synergy with Lucario and Yanmega, so I decided to throw it on the team. It functions as a sweeper that can take a hit or two when I need it to. For the first half or so of my Battle Tree run, this guy was holding a Firium Z. But after finding myself rarely using Inferno Overdrive, I swapped it to Dragonium Z which has been far more useful.

This team got me way higher in the tree than I ever would have expected. Shoutout to Mega Salamence for destroying the team in three moves and ending my 78-win streak.
 
Well, I'm afraid that if you aim to get Butterfree (or really anything) on the leaderboard, knowledge of sets and mechanics and proper teambuilding are not an option.

Luck can only get you so far when passing battle 50 you start to run into plenty of megas and full legendary team comps.
Yeah...I know some, but definitely haven't memorized many sets, etc. If I check stuff as I go that obviously helps. I went in for another run without bothering to make any changes and lost on 53 to an Infernape whose Fake Out was faster than Medicham's. In retrospect I should've gone for Delphox with the Fake Out and that would've given me a better chance, but my team is pretty vulnerable to this lead combination regardless (as well as other faster Fake Out users). I may also switch out Kartana for something sturdier, but I think this lead pair can definitely manage a longer streak.

Video of the loss:
D6TG-WWWW-WWWF-A2Y2
 
If you rely so much on fake out, Mega Lopunny could be a better option that can also hit ghost types, while providing several utility options for your 4th move slot.
 
So, I'm trying to work out a team for singles. After a bit of experimenting, I've become fond of Dragonite. After a bit of research, I concluded Aegislash would be a good complement to Dragonite. That leaves me with a third pokemon. A normal-type would cover Aegislash's weakness to ghost pretty well, but I don't have any competitive normal types bred. A couple of possibilites that come to mind or Porygon-Z or Porygon-2, Mega-Loponny, and Mega-Kangaskhan. Does anyone have any particular reccomendations?

Here's what I'm currently working with, for reference (Also, am I barking up the wrong tree borrowing the Aegislash set from the sample set for Ubers)?
Dragonite @ Lum Berry
Ability: Multiscale
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
-Outrage
-Earthquake
-Roost
-Dragon Dance

Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
IVs: Spe 0
Sassy Nature
-Gyro Ball
-Toxic
-Shadow Sneak
-King's shiel
 
first off let me say that your aegislash set is terrible. uninvested gyro ball will not be 2hkoing things you really want to get rid of (rotom-frost, opposing kangaskhan) and with no setup on aegislash, you can't take advantage of the massive amount of setup opportunities it gets. change it to a more standard adamant swords dance set. as for your third slot, pretty much any water works there. kangaskhan is something a lot of people have stayed away from after the nerfs, but by all means give it a spin if you want to, although having minimal status protection and 3 physical mons leaves you wide open to burns from stuff like flame body chandelure/moltres/magmortar.
 
first off let me say that your aegislash set is terrible. uninvested gyro ball will not be 2hkoing things you really want to get rid of (rotom-frost, opposing kangaskhan) and with no setup on aegislash, you can't take advantage of the massive amount of setup opportunities it gets. change it to a more standard adamant swords dance set. as for your third slot, pretty much any water works there. kangaskhan is something a lot of people have stayed away from after the nerfs, but by all means give it a spin if you want to, although having minimal status protection and 3 physical mons leaves you wide open to burns from stuff like flame body chandelure/moltres/magmortar.
Yeah, the brief tests I've done with it so far have proven decidedly lackluster. You reccomend a water-type for the third pokemon; Would calm mind suicune work well?
 

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