New to competitive, some questions

[Junko_JLE]

Hello there everyone! I've been lurking here for some time as a guest and finally decided to make an account XD

I'm currently creating a guide blog for the base game (and Shard of Dreams when it's translated), similar to the one created by GamerWaltz (using my own playthroughs of course!). I have been playing Pokemon-esque games for almost 10 years but never touched competitive (mostly because I live in a country where Nintendo Wi-Fi doesn't exist LOL).

So, enough with the introduction. TPDP got me really interested in competitive because of reasons Pokemon lack: nearly everything can be used and I can actually do online battles with strangers because there's no Nintendo WiFi or whatever it is (correct me if I'm wrong!). The puppets are also absolutely cute. I've been lurking around Smogon as well so I have some basics for competitive (prediction, coverage, and stuff). That being said, I haven't found any answers to some questions.

First, is base power everything in competitive? I don't like using high base powers in-story because I love to grind and they usually have shaky accuracy, recoil, sharply drop a stat, and others. Here is an example: Does a Speed Tojiko work better using Thor's Hammer and Luminous Flux at the cost of her might be dying from recoil rather than having Thunder Cut and Light Crushing Arrow, which have lower BP but don't eat away at her low HP?

Second, how do you determine which items to use in which puppet? I see a lot of competitives carry choice items and I've never used them at all because locking yourself to one move doesn't sound appealing to me. Another example: I have a Power Sagume with 2 HP/64 SAtk/64 Speed and the moves Sweet Desperado/Instinction (a Warped Skill)/Ultra High Tone/Moon's Protection. How do I find out an item which will suit her perfectly? (If there is something wrong with her EVs or her Skills, let me know too! She's reincarnated to have full S ranks.)

Third, does Eruption and Water Spout (and their TPDP equivalent) work on the remaining percentage HP or actual HP? And are they good moves on a puppet with high HP, high attack, low speed, and middling defenses? Here in my case, I have an Extra Mokou with the ability Full Power, and I'm looking at her Fire STAB. I'm trying to experiment how Firebird Dance (Eruption) + Full Power (a built-in Life Orb) + Food Rations work. However, because she will take hits most of the time, I'm doubting that this will work well.

Fourth, how do puppets implement moves which drop their attacks after use (like Arclight or Volcano)? I know that you can use a Purify Charm (White Herb) or a Choice item, but I have seen puppets who eat the stat drops in the face. How about moves dropping defenses such as Close Combat and its TPDP equivalent (I forgot the name)?

And finally, is it better to have a separate puppet for defending focused and spread attacks? I have been using a Defense Toyohime as my go-to defender in my Shard of Dreams playthrough (yes, I beat Mugetsu/Gengetsu too with her in the team) and her EVs are 2 HP/32 FDef/64 SAtk/32 SDef. Is this a good spread?

I'm sorry if I have too many questions which may be very hard to answer! (And I'm sure there are more questions to come)

I will highly appreciate your answers! ^^

[Kaltchrei]

That sounds like a pretty big shame that wifi was just unavailable like that. It's probably easier to just use a sim like showdown if you're looking to do comp pokemon battles.

Base power is pretty important for comp just because it assures more KOs. The powerful but inaccurate moves aren't really so inaccurate here, I think all the 120 power moves like that are 80+ accuracy. If the accuracy is a big concern, it's simple enough to just use one perfect accuracy stab on something with two types, or just any accurate one on something with one. The recoil moves are generally great options because they're strong and also reliable. It's much more important to get the KO and take a bit of recoil damage instead of taking an actual attack. Something like Speed Tojiko is probably only going to get two or three KOs before dropping to her own moves like this, but if she's done that much she's probably done her job. Even generally defensive things would rather just take recoil damage over attack damage twice.

Items are generally fairly straightforward as usually there's not that many great picks for a puppet. Choice items are generally on attackers that want to be spamming one attack very often or switching out with Changeling/Lightning Speed. Outside of that, things like Art of Combat or Straw Dolls or one of the gem hairpins are pretty safe options for offensive puppets. Defensive ones can take one of the metal hairpins if they don't have much for non attacking moves, but if they're generally using support moves it's better to just stick to Food Rations or Vat of Poison on poison types, or they can run one of the Bit items if they don't need the passive healing. Something like a Black Choker is fairly safe on a puppet you need to have make some move from. Power Sagume is sort of interesting here because she can go a couple different ways from that. Sweet Desperado and Moon's Protection don't really go too well together because the spatk drop from Sweet Desperado ruins the spatk setup from Moon's Protection. Dropping Moon's Protection would make her a fairly decent user of one of the choice items. Good Earrings would make her Sweet Desperado hit hard unless it runs into some Steel type, and Good Belt would make her fast enough to revenge plenty of other puppets. Ultra High Sound is a pretty safe stab move to spam on anything if you're worried about the Steel switch. The warped move is fine for covering wind types, and she can just replace protection with Shark Trade to move the item to the enemy puppet if you don't want to stay locked into one move, or Puppet's Grudge can KO her to let some other puppet in to get set up easily. If you don't want to stay locked into one move like that, dropping Sweet Desperado for Poison Bomb would give her a nice poison attack that doesn't cut into the spatk that Moon's Protection is boosting. In that case, something like Straw Dolls or Food Rations would be nice just to keep her options open. Items generally are simple though, and if you just experiment some it shouldn't be hard to figure out what you want to use.

The Eruption moves are just based on % of Hp remaining, and one of the patches in the base game made them quietly drop off really hard on anything not at full health. I'm not sure if that stuck around in the expansion, but the 120 power moves work well enough, and you can just run some offense item instead of worrying about hp.

The -2 attack moves are probably just used best on things that either are mostly focused on the other attack stat, so 3 focus attacks mixed with a volcano, or just put on things that don't have very strong attack in general. Power Sagume doesn't really have any hard hitting move outside of Sweet Desperado, so she sort of needs it to do instant heavy damage. Superpower clones like Full Burst Detonate are just -1 foatk/fodef, but that's at least easier to attack with than a -2. The defense lowering moves like Heavenly Ascent are generally pretty safe to use, as they don't take away from the attack power of whatever's using it, though it does leave them weaker to priority attacks.

Generally the easiest thing to do with most defensive puppets that are usually going to be throwing attacks is just hp/attack stat, unless the hp stat is far higher than the defenses. Dropping hp for speed is always an option as well if you know there's specific things/speeds you want to outspeed. More passive puppets that don't need attack pp are usually balanced enough to either mix their defenses or lean heavily one way without either being a huge issue.

[Spar]

I'd just like to add my two cents on the first question: Base power is good, but not "everything". There are a handful of abilities that make weaker moves better than higher base power moves. Salvo is the most popular guaranteeing that the 25 base power multi-hit attacks hit five times for 125 power. Charge! is similarly good turning 95 base power attacks into 123 power attacks with no drawbacks. Strategist isn't as popular, but it's good for turning 60 base power attacks into 90 base power attacks, while retaining all the utility effects the base 60 attacks have (Priority, can't miss, high flinch, etc). Similarly the high base power moves that have drawbacks can be a better option with other abilities, such as Telescopic boosting the accuracy of 85% hit moves to 110% and Duel changing all moves to "Can't Miss".

In regards to your example I'd personally use Hand in Adversity, Thor's Hammer, Changeling, and Exploding Blaze, make Tojiko's ability Desperation and equip her with the Wolfsbane Root. Hand in Adversity is your primary attack in this case (I'm not entirely sure if the attack power after Desperation and poison is 175 or 210, but it's plenty strong either way and doesn't have recoil), Dark and Illusion types get the Hammer (180 power and stab, but the recoil hurts a lot while poisoned), and Changeling (105 power for a switch out move is awesome) for Light types or to get out before the poison kills you, and Exploding Blaze (120 power and 30% chance to burn is also awesome) fills out the skill list to cover all but Illusion/Earth types (there's only two of them: Defense Ran and Power Mamizou) for at least normal damage, plus it's something to use in the bizarre event that you are facing an Assist Akyuu (Hopefully you don't face an Assist Akyuu, because I like when my Assist Akyuu can actually throw a wrench into the works of my opponent and I haven't encountered anyone else that uses her).

And yes the Eruption moves are badly nerfed if used by anything below max HP in the expansion.

... I should check if Positive activates if you cause a stat drop to yourself, since that would negate the attack stat drop. EDIT: Just checked, Okuu with Positive doesn't activate from Volcano.

[Junko_JLE]

Thank you for the answer guys! I did some experimentation while waiting for responses and found out that Sagume didn't really need Moon's Protection and I changed the Eruption move.

Kaltchrei: I thought about Shark Trade and Puppet's Grudge too, but I wasn't sure about it (LOL). Ultra High Tone is my to-go move if I don't know what Puppet will the enemy switch into.

Spar: I know how scary Salvo and Duel are (I had a Speed Okuu for one of my playthroughs, hitting Gigantic and Volcano all the time is scary) and also Strategist is very good. Actually, does Charge! nullify recoil damage and stat drops too? I don't know if they are listed as secondary effects or not. Oh, and about the Desperation Tojiko, how do you make sure she actually stays alive for the Wolfsbane Root to trigger? She's really fragile from my experience.

[Spar]

Recoil damage is not a secondary effect, and stat drops are only secondary effects if the stat drop is on the opponent (at least that's how it works in the base game since I don't use those attacks in YnK). I have no idea if the 100% status chance from something like Exploding Knuckle, Blaze of Dawn, or Heavenly Thunder are classified as secondary (I only use 50% accuracy attacks with Okuu and Ichirin since they have Duel), but I assume they are. The secondary effects on Inferno, Emperor's Indignity, and a few other 85% accuracy attacks count towards Charge!, but then you've got the shaky accuracy problem still. I found using 95 base power attacks to be preferred.

Edit: I somehow missed your final question. Wolfsbane triggers as soon as the puppet enters the battle, so you're Badly Poisoned right from the start and your rampage can begin without delay. I think if the opponent has Overwhelm it can cancel Wolfsbane's activation, but I've never run into that match up (I don't usually use Tojiko and I run into even fewer people running Power Keine or Power Flandre), so I'm not 100% sure.

[jester147]

No, Wolfsbane and Flame Stone (?) triggers after the first turn the puppet is deployed, so it would not take effect immediately. To ensure it gets status, probably you'll need Nature Barrier for that.

[Spar]

You are correct and I feel stupid now. I haven't used Tojiko at all in the expansion and she was the only one who I ever used Wolfsbane on in the original, so I was running completely on memory (bad move on my part since I know my memory retention is awful). Having gone back to check the original, my STojiko does have Nature Barrier and Wolfsbane does trigger at the end of the turn.

Also, having just checked the translated update logs for the expansion, it seems Desperation is no longer available to STojiko, so I guess my advice is completely irrelevant now regardless.