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Confusion Alakazam solo: how to use Gengar?

Hi guys,

Yesterday I failed to solo an Alakazam with confusion/shadow ball. I arrogantly assumed it would be a walk in the park given that I had already soloed Alakazams with psycut/fs, conf/fs and psycut/sb and had improved my Alakazam team even further since then. I was proven wrong. I was not far from victory and might have ultimately succeeded if I had had more tries. Still, I didn't.

My question is addressed particularly to the Gengar users among you: would you use him (with sc/sb) in a confusion Alakazam setup and if so, how?

On my first run I brought 2, one at level 30.5 with abysmal sta iv (who still has served me well against psycut Alakazams) and one at level 33.5 with 15 def/13 sta (=optimized for confusion Mew2).They were just slaughtered by Alakazam's confusion.

I got closer to victory when leaving the 30.5 one at home and putting the 33.5 second in line so he would not eat two confusions right at the beginning of the battle. Still, I have the impression the Gengar did not really deliver.

Was it wrong to bring him in the first place to a confusion Alakazam raid or was my dodging strategy wrong? I tried to dodge sb only - should I have tried to dodge confusion as well? But if I had done so, wouldn't I have wasted too much time given that my dodge timing usually is not spot on?

Any thoughts of players who have successfully used Gengar against confusion Alakazams are appreciated (note: I didn't have a Gengar ready when I soloed Alakazam with confusion/fs, so I did not gather any Gengar experience in that raid).

Asked by TheGreatGolon7 years 7 months ago

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Answers

That video of Ray doing the first ever recorded Confusion/FB solo of Alakazam has a good Gengar section. I don't think you can do much about it, but I think the best gengar can achieve against Conf Alakazam is:
1. Dodge all confusions if possible
2. Hope Zam fires a focus blast after your shadow ball attack so you don't eat a full confusion
3. Hope Zam fires another focus blast just after you fire your second (maybe even third) shadow ball (gengar will nearly faint by this point) so you actually have time to connect, instead of confusion taking you out before it connects

However I think it is ill advised to use Gengar against a shadow ball alakazam. Isn't it just better to use maxed Ttar and tank the confusion and shadow balls? That's provided that you have them, but I'd rather invest to max Ttar than mex Gengar for this purpose.

Thanks LeCafe. I appreciate your thoughts in particular given you are Mr. Gengar:-). I will see if I can find the video.

I am not interested in the ttar aspect of the matter at the moment but really just in the question if and how to use Gengar in a confusion scenario. I take it from your answer you would generally advise against it, meaning that Gengar cannot provide any (speed) advantage over ttars here, right?

Edit: I used one Gengar in first position (the weak sta iv one; did not have the other one ready at that time) against a psycut/sb Alakazam. Worked really well - you should try one day.

It's this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBobKjRWDWw&t=217s

I am mistaken and it seems the best you can do is to fire two shadow balls for each gengar. Ray didn't even bother to dodge the confusions. However, as mentioned earlier shadow ball from alakazam will likely wreck Gengar.

I can't be called 'Mr. Gengar' when I only have Level 30 ones :) I do plan to take my 98IV legacy to level 35 or so with the leftover dust from this event :)

And just one more suggestion: try to avoid using Gengar in the first position when it's Confusion Zam, simply because Zam will fire two Confusion in a row at the beginning of the battle and even if you manage to dodge both, it already takes a lot of HP from Gengar.

Very nice and thorough analysis. And yes you are right - using maxed Ttar and tanking through is by far the best option. Both Confusion and Shadow Ball hit Gengar too hard.

And this is just to clarify a bit: Ray's solo was not the first ever recorded C/FB Alakazam solo (not to discredit Ray, he did great). Plenty of players solo'd this moveset before and uploaded videos to YouTube, and the earliest was probably Kieng's in August. I actually made a summary about these in terms of what attackers each player used:

Using all L39 Ttar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpL1u_qpUgk

Using Ttar and 1 Gengar, all L39: https://youtu.be/ymBn3snDYeY

Using level 39 Ttar, level 39 Gengar, mid-30 level Gengar, and level 39 Scizor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgRN-klPcRM&list=LL9eaw0dBrdJEMgIWQZTkyQQ&index=16

Using 1 level 39 Gengar, 1 level 39 Ttar, 1 level 30 Gengar, 1 level 30 Ttar and 2 mid-30 level Ttar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdgGGltbaDw&list=LL9eaw0dBrdJEMgIWQZTkyQQ&index=8

Using 1 level 39 Ttar, and all other mid-30 or 30 level Gengar and Ttar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0NzaQNExBs&list=LL9eaw0dBrdJEMgIWQZTkyQQ&index=5

Using 2 level 39 Ttar and other high level but not maxed out Ttar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddAi8N51SOY&t=28s&list=LL9eaw0dBrdJEMgIWQZTkyQQ&index=1

Great, thanks a lot, Andy! I will dig into this.

I've tried conf/FB with Gengars and did not managed :). I would not think about them vs. a shadow ball one since he can be one shot also in 2nd position.
Also my Mew2 ready Scizor did not delivered well vs. Confusion. My conclusion was that I need to add more Tyra Tyra Tyra all the way, no matter the CM if Ala has Confusion.
Dodging confusion with Gengar will just lose precious DPS (breaking his purpose of top DPS in fact) ultimately timing you out.

Thanks razvan, much appreciated. For the time being I drew the same conclusion and will grudgingly continue to work on my ttar line up beyond what I had usually planned, but I am getting bored of using only them.

I find more diverse teams which give you an unexpected edge more interesting, like when I was desperate in my first raid against a psycut/fs Alakazam and bringing in a forgotten level 27 Gengar I still had in stock turned the tide of the battle. I guess this is why I wish I could find a use for him in a confusion scenario as well.

Btw, I used a Scizor in my first solo against a confusion/fs Alakazam. Won the fight, but Scizor failed to impress indeed. Brought him along more for lack of ttars than anything else.

Edit: just in case anyone wonders: it is the aforementioned level 27 Gengar which is now at level 30.5.

I’m also a fun of Gengars, soloed a psyco/fb Alakazam in first week of raids with 4 of them :) (and one Ttar and 1 Dragonite).
And I also have 2 preoared for confusion Mewtwo (lvl 33 and 36.5 needed to survive 3 confusions) but I will ise them if will be a large enough party to no require rejoin. Otherwise they will be replaced with 2 maxed Snorlaxes or Gya, depending on the charge.

Frankly, after yesterday's experience I wonder where all this "a gengar that can survive 3 mew2 confusions is top, a gengar who can't is flop" talk is coming from. Mine can and still felt like a flop against Alakazam's confusion.

It's still true. But there's a little side note of it. Survival is one thing while doing damage is another. A gengar that can survive 3 Confusion but if it can only spam 1 Shadow Ball in that period before it faints, then it's not worth it. 2 Shadow Ball is acceptable. 3 Shadow Ball is what you should aim for. It needs a good timing and RNG though - Alakazam has to be using a Focus Blast before Gengar faints, so the relatively long casting time of FB plus Gengar's triple resistance to FB will make sure Gengar can fire one more Shadow Ball.

Try check out this player's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSFwimBuUHoGgTKng73w9qQ/featured
Dude likes to use Gengar and Scizor a lot in Alakazam solo battles, and he's a pro.

Did not know this post mentioned me, LOL
I have tried to solo the confusion/futuresight alakazam using Gengars before without mewtwo and came up with really close(I might beat it if my second tyranitar did not die).
Anyway, here are some tips that i have:
1. Do not start with gengar since the boss will fire two confusion at the beginning.
2. If you have mewtwo in your lineup, it can last longer. So you don't have to dodge confusion with your gengar. If you don't have mewtwo, you have to dodge the fast move since two shadow balls might not be enough.
3. Since even when you dodge, your gengar will still be charging energy, you don't have to worry about dodging so much that you can't fire charge move. I never tried this but i think you might be able to dodge every fast move and only fire up the charge move.
4. Starting with dodging every fast move and i think you will find the rhythm after some practice.
5. I think there is a trick that you can dodge and then fire up charge move(swipe, swipe and long press)
Hope these helps.

Thanks ray, I will check if 5) works. I am not thinking about including Mew2 at the moment. For one, I don't have him (the obvious reason). Second, I have the ambition to do the solos only with normal mons available to anyone, i.e. w/o tracked ones and w/o legendaries. Ash Ketchum style.

TBH, Confusion/Shadow Ball and Confusion/Future Sight are not the ideal matchups for Gengar. Dodge every Confusion? Then you lose the point of using Gengar to save you some precious time. Not dodging Confusion at all? 4 Confusion is enough to kill a L39 Gengar. Even if you manage to find a good balance between dodging some Confusion and take some hits from other Confusion, Zam's charge move being super effective to Gengar hurts a lot.

For C/FB Zam, Gengar is awesome, you'll need some RNG (need to dodge some Confusion, and one Focus Blast) and I was lucky to be able to fire three Shadow Ball before the Gengar fainted (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymBn3snDYeY). The best matchup for Gengar is against PC/FB Zam, which is actually the only possible matchup to set "fastest solo Alakazam" record.

Against C/SB Zam your best bet is always Ttar. Just note that Crunch outperforms Stone Edge by a mile in this case. My first time soloing C/SB Zam I was using 2B/C + 2B/SE Ttar (all L39) but still timed out, so I TM'ed 1 SE to C, and made it the second try using 3B/C + 1B/SE (https://youtu.be/Buw7npTkZVU). I'd assume this would be the best way for you to solo C/SB as well since maxed out Ttar is not necessary in this case, mid to high level 30s are good enough to do the job.

PC/FB Zam, huh? I was briefly thinking about it before, but did not bite the bullet yet. I have a decent one at level 20 from the old days (too bad I did not power all these Zams up like the other fella with his imaginary army); guess I will put him on my project list after all.

About ttar, no question he is the most obvious choice, but as stated, I am interested in alternatives. Mine are all double dark already btw. I did my math prior to embarking on my solo career and consequently converted them all to crunch.

Edit: just did the math. Neither a pc/fb nor a pc/sb alakazam would outperform ttar's kill speed in an Alakazam raid. So its usefulness is reduced to its resistance against fb. Not enough reason to power one up I reckon.

Sorry I figured my point was a bit confusing.

I mean - using Gengar against PC/FB Raid Alakazam, that's the matchup Gengar will shine, easier then PC/FS or PC/SB Zam. If someone wants to set a record of fastest soling Alakazam (should be more than 20s), this is the matchup to go.

Ah, ok, just read this after editing my post above.

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