yea i see a lot of rant against "hax items" like focus band, king's rock, brightpowder, or quick claw (which all essentially have a small chance of giving you an extra turn). 10% seems to be the pervading thought denouncing them so heres a clearup. unless things have changed since gsc, tonberryking was kind enough to provide this list:

bright powder: 7.8%

king's rock: 11.7%

quick claw: 23%

focus band: 12%

23% for quick claw ain't too bad...esp. on something like an ampharos.

:/

Quick Claw is horrible. 23% isn't reliable. Heck, 30% isn't truely reliable either.

Besides the point though, 10% was the "official" percentage of its activation on a turn it would be able to kick in. It might be different but I don't really feel like testing it out. As I've seen that 9 times out of 10, they fail on the opponent's team.

In the metagame, you can't rely too much on luck to win a match. Some luck based things are situational however. Like Leaf Blade on a CM'd Suicune. You could likely have a critial hit with Leaf Blade, ftw. Jirachi and Thudnerbolt/Fire Punch/Psychic/Ice Punch will get some effect a decent amount of the time. None of the other items get boosted by anything so are always stuck at some unreliable percentage.

Ampharos isn't meant to be fast simply because it can take hits fairly well. It usually has SubPunchBoltBeam(where beam is HP:Ice). Its nature is a -Spd because it takes the S-toss from blissey, as blissey will hit first, then it subs then punches next turn, ftw. Amphy doesn't like moving fast because naked sheep hate running. None of Amphy's sets incorporate speed because it isn't that good.

In Short, the hax items weren't deemed useless based on the 10% percentage but more along the lines of they are too unreliable to be used competitively where you'd barely see the effects which, in a majority of cases, wouldn't be a favorable one anyway.

Here are some events that royally mess up the hax items as well:

Focus Band: Tyranitar's Sandstream owns this item.

King's Rock: Any pokemon with Thunder Wave or a faster, more powerful sweeper could stop this.

Quick Claw: Any Bulky Sweeper can counter this easy.

Brightpowder: Delibird CB Hustle STAB Aerial Ace. OWN'D. If this Penguin in PJ's can own the item..most pokemon can.

Well, there should be a thread for really n00bish questions (j/k), I know I'm gonna be made fun of...

Anyway, here goes:
1 - I know the expression boah concerns tyranitar. But what does it exactly mean/come from?

2 - Among the dozens of counters for jask nowadays, should I stick with a hazer or could I try a poke with psych up too, seeing as jask's purpose is mainly that of BPing? I know there are other, better counters, but I just want to know about these. Is psych up reasonable enough or not?

Thnx for your time.

1. Someone said that while battle the said Tyranitar and BAM the name stuck.

2. A hazer like Weezing is fine if you can time the Haze to when they baton pass or just prior to the pass going off. Psych Up can be effective in a way if your speed is higher than that of the opponent and the sub is broken upon the switch.

The way I see it, if you have to rely on luck-based items, mainly quick claw, that's saying something about your team. A Snorlax with Quick Claw is just saying you can't handle the fact that its slow, while all the good players know how to use it as a special sponge. As for other items, that just hurts you, as instead of trying to get an attack to miss, aiming for a better, but still low, chance at a critical hit, or keeping your last HP after a hit, you could be healing with leftovers or using Salac/Liechi/Petaya Berries to help you out. King's Rock is acceptable in some cases, but still you'd be better off with the items i just mentioned.

I counter your points with the following; what if the poke doesn't have the defensive capabilites to make lefties usefull? What if you're just using Quick Claw for the humour of it? (After all, it is a game, have fun with it.) What if you're lucky and want to take advantage of it a little? Granted, a smart player isn't going to rely on hax items, but what if the standard, boring item just isn't usefull on that poke? What if, like me, the player doesn't like to repeat the use of an item?
My main guff with you people is that you aren't willing to even look at the item. I use them, and I've won games because of them, and I've won games without them activating. Alot of the game already has an element of the unknown, why not add to it by using a non-standard item?

One thing is false in this statement. Leftovers isn't made for defensive pokemon. It is made for pokemon who have the capability of their HP to be divisible by 16 which translates to EVERY pokemon except Shedinja. All pokemon make use of Leftovers. Same can be said about Choice Band. However, some pokemon can use CB better than others. Back to the subject: Hax Items are normally banned in most, if not all, competition. This is because competition is more about skill than luck. Double Team and Hax Items tip the scales in favor of Luck than Skill.

YES, there will be critical hits or constant misses with Rock Slide/Will-o-Wisp/Cross Chop/ect.

YES, that is luck. However, that is a different kind of luck. A 80-90% accuracy are VERY nice odds of hitting. So you aren't relying on luck as you assume that it will hit because of the high, although not 100%, accuracy.

Hax Items are also not very encouraged on a tactical level because Ttar + a indirect damage attack will terrorize the pokemon with the said item. This is why some people perfer CBers with Ground, Rock, or Steel in their typing and they normally don't let the CBers of any sort get Poisoned, Seeded, Wisped, ect. for a long period of time or at all.

Not to sound like a n00b, but what does 'BL' stand for? I mean, UU and OU are easy to figure out, but BL? Also, what is the current 'term' used fo the common Gengar? I've heard things like McGar, but just asking.

The main, and I think pretty much only, good reason to note use Hax Items is simply because a lot of the current metagame leaves little room for big risks. One mess up and a team could be completely swamped. Quick Claw is a big one where something slow as sin attacks first, KOs its only counter, and you proceed to win 6-0 or something similar. People don't like that idea, especially if the team they use is very solid and veteran team, because they don't think it is valid to win because of some random spurt of luck.

Believe me, when someone's Aerodactyl flinches my Skarm into a KO...I get fairly PO'd. So it isn't JUST the items themselves, it is more the idea that someone can win based on some weird spurt of luck...however some luck can be calculated. I.E. Leaf Blade on a CM Water Pokemon to get a critical hit..the chances are likely so you can sort of rely on a critical hit. Same with Cross Chop.

Basically, Leftovers works on all pokemon regardless of stat or capabilities. Reason being is a big ugly green monster known as Tyranitar. Hax Items pretty much hurt the pokemon because Sandstream will wear them down, unless they are Cacturne, Ground-, Rock-, or Steel-type. Leftovers pretty much turn all of the pokemon equiped into those types immune to sandstorm, which is a very nice thing to have. True some pokemon are better equipped with it...but if T-tar did not have Sandstream then Leftovers would, more than likely, lessen in use on pokemon like Alakazam, Gengar, and Houndoom.


Neo_Matrix: BL stands for Borderline. Most current terms for Gengar are: McGar, McIceGar, and Gengar.

Cool article but there isn't rayquaza on the uber list. I know this may be classed as necromancy but I think it's fair to point it out to anyone new who might read this article. sorry. 8)

Fix'd

Good Eye. And this isn't necromancy, I wouldn't say, because this topic does need to be updated once and a while.

I have one random question: Why is Wobbuffet counted as a Uber?

This should explain it well enough.

What's Skarm? I used to think it was SKarmory, but then I saw Skarmory and Skarm both in the "Pokemon People think are Uber but are not" list. And what makes Ninetales and Registeel look good in the first place to be in the "Pokemon that look good but actually are not" list.

Then what's the difference?

Basically a typo no one ever called me on

I have three questions:
1. Why are and listed seperately?
2. What makes look good in the first place to be in the "Pokemon that look good but actually are not" list?
3. Why is considered Uber when there is Toxic? Wouldn't it work pretty well on because of the fact that it wouldn't be able to heal itself and would just eventually die? Especially if you stopped from attacking?

First off, Scizor and Scyther are two independent pokemon that can both work perfectly well. Scizor is listed as BL since it can reversal with Sandstorm resist, but is slow as sin, and is 4x weak to fire (A lot of physical attackers carry Fire Blast for Skarmory)

Second, Nintales looks good because of a nice movepool and good speed. However, it's too fragile and can't really attack that well, plus it has the bane of being a fire type. Fire is weak to EQ which obviously isn't good, and also doesn't have the defenses of Steel or Rock types to help it.

Third, Wobbuffet not ONLY carries Safeguard against Toxic, but can also Encore your toxic, and then switch to something like Salamence, who can then Dragon Dance and sweep.

But because lacks in Speed, couldn't you use Toxic before Safeguard? And even if it did switch in to something like , then 1/3 of your opponents team would be toxi-cized ( I like that word) and because of the fact that Shadow Tag is gone, wouldn't you be able to switch into some sort of ice type and smack down (as stated in the guide) ?

okay here's how it goes

Turn one - Pokemon used Toxic
Wobbuffet is Poisoned!

Wobbuffet used Encore!

Pokemon got an Encore!

Turn two - pokemon used Toxic
Wobbuffet is already poisoned!

Wobbuffet used Safeguard!
Wobbuffet's team is covered in a veil

Turn three - Wobbuffet switches to Salamence

Pokemon used Toxic
Salamence is covered in a veil or whatever

And so on. The only sure-fire counters are

Toxic Dugtrio
Toxic Porygon2 (trace)
Toxic Gardevoir (trace)

Beedrill? NU? This guy is the DEADLIEST WEAPON you may have;
@ Lefties
~ Agility
~ Brick Break
~ Endure
~ Endeavor
Start with Agility, use it twice a row. Then, Endure and with the help of Agility, Endeavor. Your opponent should have around 8-9 HP. At that moment, use Brick Break. Dead opponent.

That would work, but a few problems:

1.) Beedrill is fragile as all heck.
2.) Its slower than blastoise. A bee that can't outrun a turtle.