True – and even if the 30% Paralyze chance of not moving at all doesn’t kick in, you cripple the opponent’s Speed stat anyway.
Yup – hard to argue with Thunder Wave… although let me tell you a story about the Doswell, Virginia, East Coast Regional that Bricker Jr and I played in a couple of weeks ago. (Yes, I played, too!)
First battle, I brought out Seaking and Talonflame. My opponent used Thunderbolt against Talonflame, and was shocked – no pun intended – to see Seaking’s Lightning Rod activate and boost Seaking’s Special Attack, as well as keeping the electric attack completely off Talonflame and not harming the fish either. So Talonflame faints the other pokemon facing my team, and she tries to slow him down with Thunder Wave… apparently not realizing that Lightning Rod activates on any electric attack, not just damage-dealing ones. So the rest of that battle went very quickly: Seaking had +4 SpA and access to Scald.
Indeed – it’s one reason I love Talonflame. Gale Wings makes any flying move a priority: I can set up Tailwind in utter safety, or Choice Band him and obliterate many threats with Brave Bird. No need to invest in Speed EVs, unless I’m worried about outspeeding ANOTHER Gale Wings Talonflame!
From what I can tell so far (mostly playing in-game, with a little metagame time), it only affects previous stat-changes. I’m unsure what would happen if you were to use it multiple times, however - would the reversal reverse itself to the initial stat change, or does Topsy-Turvy create a new “baseline” stat for the purposes of the battle?
So I just beat Omega Ruby and I’m trying to figure out what I want to do in the long run. I think I’ve decided to:
Breed a fully dragon team. Then transfer that via Pokebank to a newly purchased Alpha Sapphire. Then beat the game again, but this time it’ll be a challenge as I’ll have the exp. share off and dragons are pretty weak starting out. Once that’s completed I will attempt a living dex. I won’t get it but I want to fill it out as best as possible. To help with that I’ll transfer over from Ruby my Breloom (knows Spore and False Swipe) and Ditto.
In order to switch it up a bit and keep myself from getting bored, I think I’ll breed and EV train an online battle team.
I took the time to build the ultimate catching machine: a Smeargol who knows Soak, Spore, False Swipe, and Thunder Wave. Spore and False Swipe are of obvious value; Soak lets me False Swipe Ghost types, and Thunder Wave lets me status a Pokemon with Insomnia.
That’s pretty similar to my catcher. My Smeargle knows Soak, Spore, Hold Back (exactly like False Swipe, but cooler as a stealth brag - “yeah, my Celebi taught him that”), and Sweet Scent, which I use to flush out horde encounters. I also use Soak to lower the resistance of Rock and Steel types.
Completed my National Dex in Y; not sure if I want to do it again in Omega Ruby. I have caught all the Pokemon obtainable in the wild except for Elekid, which is supposedly on a Mirage Mountain I have yet to encounter. Found all the TMs, rounded up all the Unowns.
Now I’m working on my cheap gimmick team. My son and I like to come up with gimmicks that are fun to annoy the opponent, although they’re easy to counter once you know what’s coming, so they wouldn’t be very useful in tournaments. My son is fond of using a weak but high speed Pokemon that knows Destiny Bond.
My current gimmick project is a Shedinja paired with a Seaking that knows Soak and has the ability Lightning Rod. After being hit with Soak, the only moves Shedinja is vulnerable to are Grass and Electric, and Seaking absorbs all the Electric attacks. I have Shedinja hold Safety Googles to protect against weather damage. Great fun until the opponent whips out something with a Grass move.
I really need to start paying more attention. I just found out that last week someone wondertraded me a level 100 Sandshrew holding a master ball. I could have really used that second master ball during the Delta Episode. I ended up knocking it out.
Nintendo just announced a Diancie distribution for this weekend, Friday-Monday 24-27th.
Downloadable through wi-fi. This time the distribution is for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire only. The Diancite will be available as well.
