Concerning Blissey in raids
After reading the most recent thread about FB Mew2, I honestly start getting tired of these unqualified comments about blissey.
When doing the math, we find that e.g. a level 39 13 atk lugia with dt/sa would theoretically best mew2 in 1117 secs, whereas a level 39 13 atk p/hb blissey would do it in 1277 secs. A huge difference? I think not!
And that is even discounting the charge energie delivered by mew2 via the damage it causes. Now that opens up an additional strategic angle: exactly because Blissey is weak to FB and lugia is double resistant (and single resistant to psycic), Blissey will receive way more damage and, accordingly, charge energy. So it seems quite possible that in a real fight (especially if mew2 has confusion) it actually might end up dishing out more damage than lugia.
I for one would appreciate if trainers on this forum could stop handing out unqualified comments about Blissey. Blissey not being a viable attacker will be true in most cases (it absolutely needs to get to the last pound break point). But in instances where this is different, that difference really matters for advanced players with a deeper understanding of the game mechanics and strategy.
Like that other fella who keeps handing out minor league advice and then stubbornly defends it against all factual arguments because he does not even realize how limited his understanding of the game is. This just holds everyone back and prevents potentially interesting discussions between advanced players. Don't you all agree?
Answers
Sorry Fred, but this is just what I was talking about.
You disgree - with what? That stubbornly defended minor league advice might prevent interested players from going to a higher level? Or do you disagree with the mathematical facts presented in my post?
Or do you in fact disagree with a point I did not make at all, namely that it might be a good idea to bring Blissey to a FB Mew2 raid with only 6 participants? Because I would never say such a thing. With such a limited number of players, you will have to drop out, heal up and re-enter the raid, so this is an entirely different constellation where a different strategy is required (and in which you would not want to bring a Lugia either btw). That was not the subject matter of my post.
Edit: ...although it would be interesting to see what would happen if these 6 players brought 5 high level tyranitars and one fully powered up blissey each. My guess is that this might actually work without anyone needing to drop out and re-enter...
"...P/hb Blissey will do it in 1277 seconds..."
Let me speak for everyone when I say: what?! You don't have 1277 seconds. I don't even know the point you're trying to make. Blissey is not an attacker. She should only be used as the 6th slot for lower level players in large groups. Use real checks and counters not walls.
Against its hardest possible moveset: C/FB. dodging FB with 25% dodging chance against FB;
If you attack with 1 tyra at the time you would need:
22 lvl 35 tyras and 714s
if 6 players attack it;
119s with 4 tyranitar per player needed. So yeah, right on the money. Mewtwo is not that bulky. Lugia is a lot
more tankier and harder.
Regarding blissey or Lugia as a tank. Lugia is probably slightly better imo, but you have a good point in it is a smaller difference than many think. but you probably will not need a tank in the first place against mewtwo since it has good but not amazing defense and stamina making for a quick raid.
Still, I'd go with blissey, invest 80K dust into a raid tank(!) that you probably will not use(!) is to pricey imo. Presuming you has a high lvl blissey.
Put your 80K dust into tyranitars instead imo.
For example my team survives against C/FB:
2400 gengar: 12s (starting first)
3400 tyranitar: 36s
3400 tyranitar: 36s
2400 scizor: 29s
2400 Pinsir 22s
first5: 135s. Have in mind this is a very fragile glassy team vs confusion, im just wanking over a high DPS rate; tyranitars are used as tanks.... I am guessing with 18 or more players it's down before that. Got a 3000CP snorlax that would give me 39s I could slide in the last spot. But I think first 5 is most likely what i am actually going to use. 135s should be enough. Might invest a bit more power up or swap pinsir for something more bulky but anchors are not really necessary as i see it.
Thanks for the differentiated reply, veno. You are right of course, it would not be wise to spend heavy resources on a strategic last mon if you have some more pressing blanks to fill. Investing in tyranitars will usually pay more dividend against mew2 and should undoubtedly be the priority.
But if you already have all the usual (and obvious) heavy guns you need for slots 1-5, I find the only real strategic play in group raids is deciding - taking into account group size and quality of your fellow raiders and always aiming for the +3 damage bonus - whether or not it will be possible to win the raid with just one set of mons or whether you will need to drop out, heal and re-enter.
If you believe it can be done with one set of mons, the next question is whether you will even get to the last mon or not. In large groups, more often than not you don't even get to your last mon, so there is no need for a tank anyway.
Now, in all situations where you think you may actually get to your last mon, the interesting question is which one to bring.
In my experience, if you get to your last mon you often find yourself in a situation where the raid boss is already in the red, you may actually still have quite some time left on the clock but some of your fellow raiders (of which you did not have many to begin with) have already been sent to the lobby and prefer to wait it out instead of returning at that late stage and losing their damage bonus.
This is when you and few others may have to carry the group and this is when often times it is not max damage that is required but rather decent damage and high stamina. And this is when, in case of mew2, lugia, snorlax and blissey come in, bringing in each case different assets to the party.
If in such a situation you are able to dish out half of the damage of a top counter and at the same time stay in the fight until the end, your prospects of winning the thing might be quite good. After all, to beat a raid boss in time, you first have to survive that long.
Why am I so sure of all this? Because I have been in similar situations in legendary raids more than once.
But I fully agree, depending on how rare mew2 raids will turn out to be, it is quite possible one may never get into a situation where one will use one's blissey. However, as for me, I had a level 37 one in stock from the old gym days anyway, so boosting it up to level 39 was a relatively small investment. And having the whole set of snorlax, lugia and blissey ready if ever the need arises just feels good.
In the meantime, that blissey is patiently sitting in my home gym and annoys the hell out of people, so I don't regret the investment either way.
The fact is that you(the player) needs to kill the raid boss within a certain time period so high DPS counters are needed. The goal is not to "survive" a raid (this is the raid boss's role not yours), it is to use optimal counters to get maximum possible damage balls. The difference in time does matter between a good raid anchor like lugia (good bulk, ok attack stat) and blissey (excessive bulk, tissue attack stat) because the difference is 160 seconds or 2.67 minutes. Time and true dps matters the most in a raid, because everyone is fighting against the time (you dont get 1277 seconds to fight) and each other for damage.
best moveset = hydropump? im pretty sure that a super effective crunch will outdmg hydropump - even when ur not considering the loss of energy there inevitably will be with a 1 bar charge move.
With that said, i dont think blissey looks favorably, when her downing time of mewtwo is double the time
of the other counters i mentioned.
Blissey's Damage Per Second is horrible.
Blissey's Damage Per Pokemon is great.
Because Ninatic made the stupid rule that reentering a battle costs you your damage, it is possible that a Blissey will outpreform any other pokemon if the following conditions are met:
1) You would otherwise sit in Lobby
2) There are enough other raiders to finish the encounter in time
This is why a Blissey is often a 6th choice, or at best a 5th choice.
If you are using Blissey *6, and there are enough people there that only 3 blissey die. It's a good bet you just cost yourself damage balls. Replacing 2 higher dps pokemon dieing vs 1 blissey
The problem most of us minor league players will have with your point is that you're comparing blissey to another non attacker
Then in the comments you say that when comparing blissey/lugia to actual attackers they do "quite favorably" but then quote times just over half of what blissey and lugia would do. Which means they would be doing almost double the DPS
I had my wife use two 2400cp Lick Snorlaxes in a Shadowball Mewtwo raid, only relevant true attackers she has are two 2450 Tyranitars, a Dragonite, a big Vaporeon--the raid had 13 people. She survived and got 2 damage balls--a 2247 PC/FB was the result. That group took about half the time, her being level 30 was just a little too long to take Shadowballs. Snorlaxes can be a legit move, Blissey...put one on the end if you want, pretty sure the boss will be beat whether you kamikaze or not, saves you the possibility of a crash/Niantic super network screwup that leaves you back in the initial lobby
Blissey as an anchor is widely accepted as ethical by most standards, provided that you have contributed 5 other good pokemon at the beginning (the optimal counters, Ttar or dragonite)...
Interestingly I have run into a situation where if I had used another pokemon instead of a Blissey, I would have won. It was a Ttar raid, and I used 4 Machamp, 1 Vaporeon and 1 Blissey. There were 5 people in the raid, and I thought 'oh well, just throw in the Blissey in the end so I don't have to quit'.
And alas, even with the effort of my 4 Machamps (lets say it was 35% of the damage), the other 4 players fail to inflict enough damage to finish Ttar. I didn't have a 5th machamp but if I used Poliwrath we might have won.
However, isn't it really down to the other 4 players being not as good who are at fault, rather than me using a Blissey?
Please discuss.
Is the blame to be put on the bloke who used 4 machamps and a blissey, or the dude who used vaporeon, jolteon and venusaur to fight tyranitar?
In all honesty, the very fact that I've gone to my blissey proves that how much of a liability the rest of the raid group were. Everyone had two machamps to start it off? Fight wouldve been over when I reached my third.
You're calling the rest of your raid group a liability? You think you'd have been better off without them? They may not be reading this thread but don't all trainers deserve a little respect?
[Sorry if this sounds sanctimonious – or do I mean sancti-moan-ious? I guess I'll just get off my high horse and take a nap.]
I guess not surpringly, I will side with you in this case. However, there is one thing: as a tank counter for tyranitar, even an optimal blissey (with dazzling gleam) is much, much worse than the very viable alternative that is rhydon.
For a player of your experience, I think it is not enough to just pick any tank as your last mon. But as you said, with the mons you brought, you are certainly not to blame for the fail. Still, you can always just optimize your own play, can't you?
I'm not sure where you are going with that link. The article clearly states that Blissey should only even be considered against Shadow Ball Mewtwo, has to have Pound/Hyper Beam, and is not recommended for any other movesets. Furthermore, even against Shadow Ball, it shows that Blissey still does less damage than the other counters.
Sure did...I like irony.
That was the best part.
Like I said the very first time we had this discussion.
It comes down to the player, and their style of play - I would rather carry the leeches than be one.
I go for dps even on my 6th mon - if you need to look out for self over the good of the team then go right ahead and pick what is the longest lasting tank...I will do the extra 10% damage with a TTar, or some other genuine attacker.
And like I said last time, it is not like you will be doing Mewtwo in such a small group that you will use your 6th mon...if you do, then it is probably FB and so Blissey is screwed anyway.
It is almost uncanny how you keep confirming my point, seemingly without even noticing. Thank you very much for this, I find it most interesting. Btw, it is precisely against a fb mew2 where blissey has the potential to shine.
Did you follow the link in reply to your initial comment? I did. Interesting read.
it is precisely against a fb mew2 where blissey has the potential to shine.
Seriously? Fighting vs Normal WTF??!!?!!!?
does not even realize how limited his understanding of the game is
I keep proving your point?
Did you read the article properly?
The article talks about Blissey against SB not FB - FB is fighting and will wreck Blissey with it's normal typing.
That in itself is the end of the discussion...but I suspect you are actually trying to make a point about Blissey VS ShadowBall (or are you serious about Blissey against FB...really?)
So I will address it as if you are actually trying to make a valid point concerning SB...
Seriously...how many self respecting players even have a lvl39 P/Hb Blissey, without a better option?
I did read the link, and read the detail...even the author was hesitant to put it in the list. Why?
...in one specfic circumstance, if a player has a lvl39 Blissey, with the one specific unpopular moveset, and Mewtwo has one particluar move (SB not FB) and they choose to go the option of a tank instead of dps, then for that one instance it is a viable tank alternative...not an attacker, but a viable tank.
Now if all of these stars align, and you prefer to tank rather than actually go for the kill, then I hope the rest of the team carry you through, rather than sitting in lobby hoping to keep their damage bonus, as the timer runs out.
Now with the vast numbers of players that will fit in this criteria, I can see why it is such an important miniscule detail to concentrate on.
I will still prefer to do more damage than leech for personal gain.
I still think that the people in my raid are my team mates, not my competitors.
Not to be rude, but this post is dripping with irony. You talk about "unqualified comments" about Blissey, and then proceed to make an argument based on your own personal guesses/assumptions, not facts. Are "It seems quite possible" and "it might actually end up" the "factual" arguments you are referring to? In the comments, you provided a link to Pokebattler, which is an amazing resource. Take a few minutes to actually run the simulations there and you'll see where all the "unqualified comments" are coming from.
Point taken, ryder. Please note though that the behavior you criticize stems from my trying to make a clear distinction between the facts I use (e.g. theoretic kill speed of a mon against a particular boss) and the deductions I derive therefrom, or opinions I have.
Given that you cannot translate the math 1:1 to real life on account of lags, random boss behaviour, lack of resources etc., I try to make it clear where I cannot confirm something from own experience yet but rather have to make an educated guess. I am well aware that some of these guesses might prove incorrect and appreciate if other players tell me and let me know why.
