u/ianlazrbeem22

As a vocal Lucario critic I decided to play through the game with a mixed Lucario before my next Breaking the Binary post - it had been a while since I ran through the game with one and I wanted to make sure I was giving good data-based criticism, especially since I've gotten a lot better at optimizing the game since I last used one. This also was a good chance to compare it to other Pokémon, and use again a lot of Pokémon that I'm fond of, and many I see as a bit underrated or overhated. I got blessed with the Pokérus shortly after I got my Lucario, and as a result it became a little harder to collect data about anything since all my Pokémon gained double EVs, overinflating their stats for some lategame boss fights - all but Flareon had capped EVs by the end. Pokérus ended up being very helpful with reaching speed thresholds. With a good team with good stats I was able to finish at lower levels than usual, even without a Swords Dance user - Cynthia was a hard fight though. Rules for the run were level caps, no items in battle, and set mode.

Montserrat the Lonely Staraptor was obviously the best one on the team, as one of the best Pokémon in the game he was a good example of what a good Pokémon should look like and a good comparison point. He was excellent throughout the game and was very strong and dependable, always able to do good damage and usually outspeed and ohko with Return, Flying STAB, and later Close Combat. He put in a crazy amount of work for Cynthia, and for the whole game honestly.

Kellan the Naive Luxray was a good reminder for how Luxray performs. I definitely noticed his low points of the game, but still maintain he is good. Training him up in the earlygame was rougher than I remembered, but his midgame was amazing, and he was helpful at route clearing throughout the game, handling most of Mt. Coronet and most water routes, as well as almost the entire stretch from Route 215 to Pastoria, including the Pastoria Gym. Intimidate was also super helpful for early problem points like Mars and Jupiter. His bad speed was annoying during the e4 but wasn't really an issue before then, his bulk was surprisingly good and he took hardly any damage from most route trainers, and the speed was good enough for a lot of them, able to reliably get the jump on most Golbat. His best moment was, together with Staraptor, getting Cyrus's Gyarados to -2 and ohkoing it with Tbolt, and he did a fine job pivoting to a support role after that.

Akwakwak the Modest Golduck was even better than I remember, such a powerhouse once he got Surf and Ice coverage. He was super strong thanks to Specs, and his speed was pretty good - his bulk was too. He swept Bertha and a ton of routes with Specs Surf, and also was able to reliably survive EQ and OHKO Cynthia's Garchomp with Ice Beam. Such a good and slept on Pokémon.

Packer the Adamant Rampardos was a Pokémon I'd previously underrated! It took some TM investment between Earthquake, Rock Tomb, and Rock Slide, but this man one-shot almost everything he attacked. Rock Polish made him a surprisingly potent sweeper, Fire Punch was handy for Aaron and for enemy Bronzor and Bronzong, and SlideQuake hit everything else hard. He wasn't that great for Cynthia, but before that he was a good sweeper, sweeping the Galactic Commanders, Cyrus 2 and Saturn, Mars and Jupiter, Volkner, Aaron, and Flint. Rock Polish remains one of the most underrated moves in the game, both him and Rhyperior are cracked with it.

Anderson the Naive Flareon was sadly my worst Pokémon. I was excited when I got a naive Eevee, but this was a mistake - multiplying base 110 spdef by .9 was more impactful than I bargained for and made him unable to survive just about anything. He still was able to do a pretty crazy amount of damage, but only about once or twice per battle since his survivability was very disappointing, even against Pokémon he should have been pretty good into like Cynthia's Roserade - he did take Roserade out on the successful Cynthia attempt though. Part of the problem also was Flareon had other Pokémon doing his job better - Lucario ended up being better into Byron, Candice, and both were pretty bad into the E4. Rampardos was better into Volkner. Golduck was better into Fire types and Staraptor was better into Grass types. Flareon can put work in, but this run was not good for him. I should have reset for a Hasty or neutral one.

007 the Hasty Lucario put some work in. He was quicker to get trained up than I expected, but did eat up a lot of trainer exp, forcing me to do a Collector Douglas grind before Wake to save all the side areas for him and a Cole grind before Volkner to get everyone to competent levels. He was ready to go for Byron, who he swept with Aura Sphere, and did well into Candice with Flash Cannon, but fell to Froslass. After this his appearances were less frequent and he was not super notable, but I was impressed with him making the Froslass, Espeon, and the Cynthia's Lucario speed thresholds thanks to his nature, amazing speed IV, and Pokérus EV boost. I gave him all my Proteins and Carbos after I got him too. During the e4, he revenge killed Espeon, helped weaken and force out Cynthia's Spiritomb, and nailed her Lucario with Close Combat on the switch, which was always after she Full Restored Spiritomb if it was debuffed. Not great for a Pokémon that the entire playthrough was planned and optimized around, but a decent showing at least. Worse than a Swords Dance one would have been. If I bothered leveling him up to 55 he would have hit 151 (154 actually) speed, but Ice Punch wouldn't have ohko'd Garchomp regardless:

Lvl 55 138 Atk 13 IVs Lucario Ice Punch vs. Lvl 62 0 HP / 0 Def Garchomp: 136-160 (60.4 - 71.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Lucario's stats are included for reference. Look forward to reading more about mixed Lucario's performance in the upcoming Breaking the Binary post.

Overall it's always a good time playing through my favorite game with Pokémon I like and it was nice playing a very traditional team after mostly using out-of-dex Pokémon or doing monotypes.

I was hoping on playing through the game pretty normally to test out mixed Lucario, and look what I rolled... Lucario might actually make some speed thresholds with double EVs! My reward for spending hours resetting and re-hatching for a good nature I suppose

The community tier list series going right now inspired me to play through emerald again - talking about emerald makes me want to play emerald. It was a good reminder of just how amazing this game is, such a fantastic soundtrack and region, and the lack of physical special split and so many modern moves is so fun to go back to. I made a team of various pokemon I wanted to try out.

Rosie the Adamant Linoone was honestly the team's ace, even before the e4 she was always the one I could count on to kill stuff and be fast. And then I dabbed on the e4 as Linoone does

Goombella the Bold Breloom is the only one here I've used before in emerald, she was a little awkward to use at times with her limited offensive profile but still a strong and reliable team member. I just couldn't get rid of Stun Spore because it kept being useful for me, so no Bulk Up for me, she was still pretty good. I kept being in awe of how hard Sky uppercut hit and how weak Giga Drain hit

Karen the Bold Illumise was so good, Encore was constantly useful for me and it put in work in just about every boss fight, including encoring Wallace's Wailord into Rain Dance so the Rain would end before Ludicolo came out. It also took down Slaking and Altaria with Charm, and Encore also helped with Tate & Liza a lot. Such a fun and satisfying pokemon to use

Betty the Rash Camperupt was as good as she could be, Camerupt has its problems in the lategame but it was quite good for the midgame, and she helped out a lot in victory road too.

Oswin the Relaxed Skarmory was another fun one to try out. He appeared in a lot of route battles and was great for Winona, so many fights for him were totally free.

Tuskothy the Impish Walrein joined late but he put a decent amount of work in, Linoone had the e4 handled so really he mostly helped with route cleaning and only got one encore off. In victory road he was still pretty valuable though, and surf was great for double battles.

What do you think of the team? I'm itching to play more emerald and keep talking about it, this last run has really cemented it in my top 3 pokemon games. Now to transfer my pokemon while I still can.

Welcome to Breaking the Binary, a sporadic series of posts all about mixed attackers in Pokémon Platinum. With competitive minmaxing dominating the conversation about Pokémon viability and the design philosophy behind movepools and stat spreads changing in newer gens, Pokémon are often rigidly divided by the fandom into the categories of "special attacker" or "physical attacker." But for the in-game story, you're not facing EV trained opponents and thus don't need to EV train to keep up, so mixed attacking sets don't have the opportunity cost they have in PvP. Going mixed still has anti-synergy with setup moves, but it still can give many Pokémon access to STAB moves with better base power, strong coverage moves with useful types, and more useful niches. This series will be covering those applications. We won't talk about every Pokémon here, only ones that I believe legitimately benefit from going mixed, but those Pokémon are surprisingly large in number. Today we'll be talking about Pikachu and Raichu. I'll be talking about in-game but feel free to discuss PvP or battle facilities as well.

Raichu is a fast (100) Electric-type with poor defense and HP, passable SpDef, and an even 90 and 90 in Atk and SpA. Its notable physical moves include Return, Dig, and Brick Break. Its notable special moves include Thunderbolt, Grass Knot, Focus Blast, Charge Beam, Agility, and Thunder. Notable utility includes Thunder Wave, Light Screen, Rain Dance, Captivate, Magnet Rise, and, if evolved from a Pichu, Nasty Plot and Charm. 

Pikachu is slower with 90 speed, which is a significant difference honestly, is much frailer with abysmal 35/30/40 bulk, and much weaker with base 55 Atk and 50 SpA, but its final Atk and SpA after nature, IVs, EVs, and level are doubled when it holds a Light Ball. It learns all the above moves except Focus Blast. 

Raichu is really underrated as a mixed attacker! Dig is a strong move with a fantastic type and no functional downside in-game. Return is incredibly strong and has very few resists. On the other hand, Thunderbolt is clearly its best stab, but its special coverage is a bit lacking. Grass Knot synergizes pretty well with Thunderbolt, but the reliance on weight makes it very unreliable until the very end of the game. Focus Blast is another valuable anti-steel move, but its accuracy is just awful. A Raichu with Thunderbolt, Dig, and Return has strong and reliable options for hitting any target. Plot and Specs are good builds for Raichu too, but there are definite merits to going this direction, mostly dipping into its utility pool, since that's tough to fit on specs or plot. Thunder Wave is pretty rare in Platinum's story. Light Screen is great in the last couple fights. Captivate opens up Cynthia sweeps. All these options paired with good speed make it a good combination of offense and utility. 

Light Ball Pikachu is kind of a meme, hilarious minmaxing but not very good in practice, base 90-100 is the range of speed where even one point makes a big difference in the lategame, and speed is everything for one of the frailest pokemon of all time - base 90 means it sometimes gets outsped! More relevant to mention here, terrible bulk and the lack of Focus Blast makes Nasty Plot not very good on Light Ball Pikachu. This pushes it even further into mixed attacker territory than its evolution. For Pikachu to succeed it needs to never give away turns and always ohko, so this pushes it into 4-attacks territory. With more Atk than SpA and Return's huge 102 base power, of course Pikachu wants that move! Dig is its strongest option vs Steels and beats other Electric types. Brick Break is mostly redundant, but Grass Knot on the other hand is a good way for it to beat Rock and Ground types. Overall Light Ball Pikachu isn't the best but it's fun to use and giving it Return as a nuke along its various other attacks.

Pikachu and Raichu also get Brick Break, but Dig is stronger, has a better type, and is just as accurate, unlike the stronger-than-both Focus Blast. I don't usually have a place for Brick Break above those options, nor Iron Tail, which is also a worse type than Dig and Focus Blast, and is much weaker than Focus Blast but not much more accurate. 

What do you think of mixed Pikachu and Raichu? Are they worth exploring? Are there any applications for going mixed I didn't mention? Leave a comment below with your thoughts. 

Sample Sets:

Pikachu @ Light Ball • Thunderbolt, Return, Dig, Grass Knot

Raichu @ Magnet • Thunderbolt, Return, Dig, Thunder Wave/Light Screen/Captivate

Raichu @ Damp Rock • Thunder, Return, Light Screen/Grass Knot, Rain Dance

I have once again been in the mood to play Platinum and I've finished another run, using 5 Pokémon (all but Camerupt) for the first time! The general strategy for the team in boss fights was to set up Agility and/or Swords Dance with Ledian then pass them to the appropriate recipient for each fight. This ended up working pretty well for the league and a couple other fights, but ended up unnecessary or difficult to execute in many others. Once everyone's build was online though it became quite strong, and setup matches so well into the e4. Rules for the run included level caps, set mode, and no item use in battle. All Pokémon were genned - 2 were added to the team at the beginning, then one per badge after that.

Pinchy the Adamant Kingler was pretty good, but a little awkward at points. He wasn't able to learn Crabhammer until the end of the game so he was relying on a pathetic Bubble then a mostly pathetic BubbleBeam until he got Dive. Rock Tomb was pretty unreliable and Dig took a while to get too, Dodrio took the first Return TM, but once I got Dig, Return, and Dive for him he became pretty good.

Tricorn the Jolly Dodrio was one of the team's two carries, Return immediately was such a good damage options on him, Faint Attack was really nice to have vs Fantina and other earlygame Ghosts and Rocks, and in general he was great speed control and an awesome damage dealer. He was no Staraptor and the absence of U-Turn was felt, but he was still great.

Go-Goggles the Calm Ledian was a mixed bag. I'm glad I was able to get Ledian to do something, and the Baton Pass strategy worked pretty well on Aaron, Bertha, Cynthia, Barry 6, Cyrus 1, and at least one other fight, but setting it up with Ledian was often awkward due to its awful typing and poor physical bulk. It also had Silver Wind for a while but actually beating anything with it was a challenge, and dropping it for Light Screen for the e4 and eventually Captivate for Cynthia helped Ledian set up quite a bit.

Mariah the Modest Minun was the best Pokémon on the team once I got the Thunderbolt TM for her. She smoked Wake, did most of the work of route clearing, and swept Lucian and Cynthia, Lucian being without any Baton Pass cheese (just Encore cheese.) Plusle was better but my Minun was just incredibly reliable. That's Hidden Power Ice by the way, Grass Knot was in that slot until the e4 though.

Aghoul the Adamant Banette was functionally an empty Poké Ball. He sucked up EXP like nobody's business, very rarely entered the field because he couldn't switch in on anything, often failed to contribute anything even went sent out due to being outsped and one-shot, one day I will get this Pokémon to work but he was absolutely useless and probably a detriment to this team.

Vesuvius the Naughty Camerupt was the glue that made everything else work, the classic Ground type role. He dealt with Bronzors, other Steel types, Fire types, and Electric types, all of which were not easy to solve with other team members. The role compression brought by Fire/Ground made it possible to slot in do-nothing Banette and another strictly utility Pokémon in Ledian, and he balanced out my good Pokémon's weaknesses quite nicely.

The hardest fight was the first Jupiter battle, Fantina was no slouch either, things got a bit easier from there once Krabby became better, Baton Pass came online, and Minun joined the team, all around Veilstone. Although I probably should have used a Dark type instead of Banette, the team was pretty fun and I'm glad I got to try out some new stuff.

Welcome to Breaking the Binary, a sporadic series of posts all about mixed attackers in Pokémon Platinum. With competitive minmaxing dominating the conversation about Pokémon viability and the design philosophy behind movepools and stat spreads changing in newer gens, Pokémon are often rigidly divided by the fandom into the categories of "special attacker" or "physical attacker." But for the in-game story, you're not facing EV trained opponents and thus don't need to EV train to keep up, so mixed attacking sets don't have the opportunity cost they have in PvP. Going mixed still has anti-synergy with setup moves, but it still can give many Pokémon access to STAB moves with better base power, strong coverage moves with useful types, and more useful niches. This series will be covering those applications. We won't talk about every Pokémon here, only ones that I believe legitimately benefit from going mixed, but those Pokémon are surprisingly large in number. Today we'll be talking about Bronzong. I'll be talking about in-game but feel free to discuss PvP or battle facilities as well.

Bronzong is a slow Steel/Psychic (with Levitate, or the inferior Heatproof) Pokémon with excellent 67/116/116 bulk. It has 89 Atk and 79 SpA. Notable physical attacks include Gyro Ball, Zen Headbutt, Earthquake, Explosion, Rock Tomb, and Rock Slide. Notable special attacks include Extrasensory, Psychic, Flash Cannon, Shadow Ball, SolarBeam, Grass Knot, and Charge Beam. Notable utility includes Iron Defense, Rock Polish, Sleep Talk, Rest, Stealth Rock, Toxic, Confuse Ray, Hypnosis, Light Screen, Reflect, Trick Room, Sunny Day, and Rain Dance. Wow.

Bronzong is a Swiss Army knife. Between its stats, typing, and ability, it's defensively incredible and can sit on the field forever, and it has a wide variety of strong attacks with applicable typings. Bad matchup vs psychic? Slap a Bronzong on your team and give it Shadow Ball. Bad matchup vs Flying? Rock Slide. Ground? It has levitate, switch in and use Grass Knot. Rock? Do the same, or go with Stab Flash Cannon, which is often neutral and decently strong. Same goes for Psychic, which is even stronger, and allows Bronzong to beat fighting types. Want a strong attack in most situations? Earthquake. Want screens to enable someone else? Want someone who can Explode after setting them? Want to set status instead? Want to set weather? Bronzong can do it all. And you can go à la carte and just give it whatever. Physical, special, a little bit of attacking and a little bit of utility, do what you want with your Bronzong. It'll probably work out, it has very balanced and very good attributes.

Gyro Ball tends to be pretty weak in-game since the enemies don't have EVs and you do, so Flash Cannon is usually preferable there. Psychic has better base power and accuracy than Zen Headbutt, and Extrasensory is almost as good but comes with no heart scale or shard investment. You're not flinching anything anyway. These attacks may still be good depending on your nature, but usually they're not preferred and SlideQuake are its physical attacks of choice.

What do you think of mixed Bronzong? Is it worth exploring? Are there any applications for going mixed I didn't mention? Leave a comment below with your thoughts. 

Sample Sets:

Bronzong @ Light Clay • Light Screen, Reflect, Explosion, Psychic/Flash Cannon/Shadow Ball

Bronzong @ Spell Tag • Psychic, Shadow Ball, Earthquake, Trick Room

Welcome to Breaking the Binary, a sporadic series of posts all about mixed attackers in Pokémon Platinum. With competitive minmaxing dominating the conversation about Pokémon viability and the design philosophy behind movepools and stat spreads changing in newer gens, Pokémon are often rigidly divided by the fandom into the categories of "special attacker" or "physical attacker." But for the in-game story, you're not facing EV trained opponents and thus don't need to EV train to keep up, so mixed attacking sets don't have the opportunity cost they have in PvP. Going mixed still has anti-synergy with setup moves, but it still can give many Pokémon access to STAB moves with better base power, strong coverage moves with useful types, and more useful niches. This series will be covering those applications. We won't talk about every Pokémon here, only ones that I believe legitimately benefit from going mixed, but those Pokémon are surprisingly large in number. Today we'll be talking about Whiscash. I'll be talking about in-game but feel free to discuss PvP or battle facilities as well.

Whiscash is a slow and decently bulky Water-Ground type with 78 Atk and 76 SpA. Its notable physical attacks include Earthquake, Watferfall, Rock Slide, and Stone Edge. Its notable special attacks include Surf, Blizzard, and Ice Beam. Notable utility includes Rain Dance, Captivate, Substitute, and Amnesia.

That movepool says it all - Water, Ground, and Ice is an amazing offensive combination that accomplishes any and all of your needs, Whiscash has high base power options in all, these are across different but roughly equal attack stats. It usually prefers to use Earthquake, but Surf and Ice Beam are great moves with great types that aren't far below it. Both Water + Ice and Ground + Ice are amazing offensive combos, all 3 hits literally everything for neutral damage or better, and Whiscash is bulky and has only one weakness. This makes whiscash a very easy pokemon to use that can sit on the field, soak up hits, and consistently deal decent damage. Both its offenses and its bulk fall off a bit by the end of the game, but it's still a solid contributer throughout with a good typing and good physical and special moves.

What do you think of mixed Whiscash? Is it worth exploring? Are there any applications for going mixed I didn't mention? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.

Sample Set:

Whiscash @ NeverMeltIce/Soft Sand • Earthquake, Surf, Ice Beam, Rest/Amnesia/Toxic/Rain Dance/Captivate

Finally finished this Sapphire run I've been working on for a while. This was a weird team of mine and mostly I just wanted to use new stuff, didn't consider synergy too much but a little bit was there. Dealing with the Steven battle was such a pain, and so was Wattson much earlier. Honestly it's probably one of the worst teams I've used in a while, but at least I found a Shiny Pelipper. Set Mode + No Items

Boey the Adamant Sceptile was ok, at best. Ngl I do not like this Pokemon, its moves are such trash for so long and Leaf Blade barely carries it. I know mine didn't have a great nature but its damage was so underwhelming pretty much the whole time. Debuffing stuff with Screech was ok I guess

Magdalena the MODEST Shiny Pelipper was so lucky and one of my best team members!! Her IVs are not good according to PKHex but Surf and Ice Beam carried her pretty well. I was already using a Pelipper and that guy got replaced when I found her. A lucky Mon and a good one too, she put in the most work vs the E4 without a doubt.

Beefy the Naughty Hariyama was also a contender for the best, he wasn't as good vs the E4 and had some unfortunate points but swept several earlier gyms with Bulk Up, he was the main wincon in many cases.

Diana the Jolly Seviper came up less vs the E4 and wasn't the best, but she was faster than Metagross and had Earthquake which was significant. She mostly was a filler Pokémon. I wish Glare wasn't super inaccurate in this game, I also learned Ghosts are immune to it unlike many other status move interactions

Deirdre the Lonely Girafarig was really cool, I liked her a lot and she carried the lategame but appeared less vs the E4. She was a solid mixed attacker helpful at many points like against waters, flying types, ghost types, and other psychic types.

Miasma the Careful Banette was not amazing but was helpful at a couple key points. Curse was my best answer to Metagross and was how I beat Walrein, Wisp was helpful at points, and Curse also synergized very well with Fake Out on Hariyama. Not the best Pokémon but actually a pretty important one for this team.

Overall my review of Sapphire is "emerald but worse," there's less reason to play it over the more complete Emerald or more unique Ruby, but it's still GBA Pokémon so I had fun and enjoyed using new things. I beat like all the e4 around level 50 but had to level up a bunch for Steven sadly. What do you think of my team?

Welcome to Breaking the Binary, a sporadic series of posts all about mixed attackers in Pokémon Platinum. With competitive minmaxing dominating the conversation about Pokémon viability and the design philosophy behind movepools and stat spreads changing in newer gens, Pokémon are often rigidly divided by the fandom into the categories of "special attacker" or "physical attacker." But for  the in-game story, you're not facing EV trained opponents and thus don't need to EV train to keep up, so mixed attacking sets don't have the opportunity cost they have in PvP. Going mixed still has anti-synergy with setup moves, but it still can give many Pokémon access to STAB moves with better base power, strong coverage moves with useful types, and more useful niches. This series will be covering those applications. We won't talk about every Pokémon here, only ones that I believe legitimately benefit from going mixed, but those Pokémon are surprisingly large in number. Today we'll be talking about Cherrim. I'll be talking about in-game but feel free to discuss PvP or battle facilities as well. 

Cherrim is a Grass-type Pokémon with average 85 speed, unimpressive bulk, and an unimpressive 60 Atk and 87 SpA. Its notable special movepool includes SolarBeam, Giga Drain, Leech Seed, and Petal Dance. Its notable physical move, which is the only viable non-Grass attack it gets outside of the extremely unreliable Hidden Power, is named Return. Its notable utility pool includes Sunny Day, Gen 4's version of Growth which just raises SpA 1 stage regardless of weather, and Swords Dance. 

Cherrim is probably one of the worst Pokémon in the game and its options are extremely limited. These limited options, as well as its ability, Flower Gift, encourage it to use both its Atk and SpA stats. Barring the extremely unreliable Hidden Power, Cherrim only has two types of attacks it can access, Grass and Normal, and there is zero reason to use it outside of Harsh Sunlight, which activates Flower Gift to boost its Atk and SpDef by 1.5x. This turns SolarBeam into a 120/100 Grass STAB with no downside, and it boosts Return's damage to a usable level (thanks to its hefty 102 BP) , even coming from a measly base 60 Atk stat. Return should only be clicked on SolarBeam resists. 

Cherrim has a 4th slot beyond this. The Snowpoint tutor can give it Synthesis, which is probably best since the SpDef boost Flower Gift grants in the sun is not neglible, and neither is the boost to Synthesis's healing in the sun. You can also give it Growth, which does not boost both stats nor boost an extra stage in the Sun in this generation, to make SolarBeam stronger, or Swords Dance to boost Return further, or Hidden Power if it's a decent type and base power, or a Grass move that can be used more flexibly than SolarBeam, probably Giga Drain.

What do you think of mixed Cherrim? Is it worth exploring? Are there any applications for going mixed I didn't mention? Leave a comment below with your thoughts. 

Sample Set:

Cherrim @ Heat Rock • SolarBeam, Return, Sunny Day, Synthesis/Hidden Power/Growth/Swords Dance/Giga Drain

Welcome to Breaking the Binary, a sporadic series of posts all about mixed attackers in Pokémon Platinum. With competitive minmaxing dominating the conversation about Pokémon viability and the design philosophy behind movepools and stat spreads changing in newer gens, Pokémon are often rigidly divided by the fandom into the categories of "special attacker" or "physical attacker." But for the in-game story, you're not facing EV trained opponents and thus don't need to EV train to keep up, so mixed attacking sets don't have the opportunity cost they have in PvP. Going mixed still has anti-synergy with setup moves, but it still can give many Pokémon access to STAB moves with better base power, strong coverage moves with useful types, and more useful niches. This series will be covering those applications. We won't talk about every Pokémon here, only ones that I believe legitimately benefit from going mixed, but those Pokémon are surprisingly large in number. Today we'll be talking about Vespiquen. I'll be talking about in-game but feel free to discuss PvP or battle facilities as well. 

Vespiquen is a bulky and very slow Bug/Flying type with an even 80 Atk and 80 SpA. Its notable physical moves include U-Turn, Attack Order, Bug Bite, Aerial Ace, and Return. Its notable special moves include Power Gem and Sludge Bomb. Its utility includes Defend Order, Heal Order, Destiny Bond, and Toxic.

Vespiquen has enough unique going for it for me to not pair it with the other Bugs from the other day. It definitely still can do the mixed utility with U-Turn thing, it just has a very limited movepool and with equal attack stats you just want to use both sides to make the most of it. Toxic is good utility on it if you're using it as a U-Turn pivot. 

Attack Order is its best STAB by far, and Aerial Ace is okay albeit weak, Return is stronger when both are neutral: 

0 Atk Vespiquen Return vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Glalie: 73-87 (24.2 - 28.9%) -- 99.2% chance to 4HKO

0 Atk Vespiquen Aerial Ace vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Glalie: 66-78 (21.9 - 25.9%) -- 1.4% chance to 4HKO

Vespiquen is mostly using physical attacks with the notable exception of Power Gem, its best coverage move by far, obtained by level up. Its best attack being a bug move means it has a lot of resistances to contend with: Fighting, Flying, Poison, Ghost, Steel, and Fire. Power Gem helps it with the Flying, Poison, Ghost, and Fire types that resist Bug, and there's no situation where it can do anything to Steel types unfortunately (outside of a lucky Hidden Power typing.) Aerial Ace hits all those types neutrally except for Steel, but it is weak and that super effective hit on fire and flying is pretty nice. Vespiquen doesn't need to avoid super effective hits the way other bugs do thanks to its good bulk and its potential as a "slow sweeper" with Defend and Heal Order, which allow it to sit on the field, tank hits, heal itself, and slowly beat down anything in its path. Sludge Bomb isn't terrible for a slow sweeping Vespiquen either but it's not a great type overall and doesn't help with Bug resists very efficiently; the secondary effect is the primary draw. 

Overall, Vespiquen's movepool is pretty limited, but its equal stats on both sides and the nice typing, power, and accuracy of Power Gem give it them option to use both physical and special moves effectively as a pivot or slow sweeper. 

What do you think of mixed Vespiquen? Is it worth exploring? Are there any applications for going mixed I didn't mention? Leave a comment below with your thoughts. 

Sample Sets:

Vespiquen @ SilverPowder • U-Turn, Power Gem, Toxic/Sludge Bomb, Attack Order/Aerial Ace/Return/Heal Order

Vespiquen @ SilverPowder • Attack Order, Power Gem, Defend Order, Heal Order

Vespiquen @ SilverPowder • Attack Order, Power Gem, Sludge Bomb/Toxic/Heal Order, Aerial Ace/Return/Heal Order

Welcome to Breaking the Binary, a sporadic series of posts all about mixed attackers in Pokémon Platinum. With competitive minmaxing dominating the conversation about Pokémon viability and the design philosophy behind movepools and stat spreads changing in newer gens, Pokémon are often rigidly divided by the fandom into the categories of "special attacker" or "physical attacker." But for the in-game story, you're not facing EV trained opponents and thus don't need to EV train to keep up, so mixed attacking sets don't have the opportunity cost they have in PvP. Going mixed still has anti-synergy with setup moves, but it still can give many Pokémon access to STAB moves with better base power, strong coverage moves with useful types, and more useful niches. This series will be covering those applications. We won't talk about every Pokémon here, only ones that I believe legitimately benefit from going mixed, but those Pokémon are surprisingly large in number. Today we'll be talking about Mothim, Beautifly, Dustox, and Yanmega. I'll be talking about in-game but feel free to discuss PvP or battle facilities as well. 

Mothim is a slow Bug/Flying type with bad bulk and even 93/93 attacking stats. Beautifly is a slow Bug/Flying type with bad bulk, 70 Attack, and 90 SpA. Dustox is a slow Bug/Poison type with decent SpDef but bad stats everywhere else, including 50 Atk and 50 SpA. Yanmega is pretty fast, Bug/Flying, physically frail, specially decent, and has 76 Atk and 116 SpA. 

I'm combining all of these because the posts would be pretty similar. These guys have pretty much the same cardinal reason to go mixed: U-Turn. Pivoting obviously is really good, this has been spoken about extensively, and as a Bug-type STAB move this hits for great chip while the field is being left. Bug/Flying, and Bugs in general honestly, have a lot of defensive liabilities that force them to leave the field pretty often, even with some matchups where they are godly (eg vs Fighting types.) Needing to leave the field to not die synergizes perfectly with U-Turn. Every time I DON'T give a bug-type U-Turn, I feel like I'm wasting an opportunity to do big chip every time I have to switch it out, which is often. 

Mothim's 93/93 offenses are the obvious picture of a mixed attacker. Overall its special attacking movepool, which includes Silver Wind, Bug Buzz, Psybeam, Psychic, Air Slash, and by TM Shadow Ball, Giga Drain, and SolarBeam, is much more available outside of the solid early stab of Bug Bite and the Aerial Ace and Return TMs. With Specs available and all those moves Mothim usually favors Special attacks. But slapping U-Turn on there and running SilverPowder goes pretty hard too, even stacking it with Bug Buzz for TWO SilverPowder boosted STABs. 

Beautifly pretty heavily favors its Special movepool and it has a small movepool in general. Its special movepool includes the Grass-type draining moves, Gust, Air Cutter, Silver Wind, Bug Buzz, and by TM Shadow Ball and Psychic. I really like Giga Drain on it since giving it a way to easily kill Water and Ground types gives it a lot more to do in the story. Beautifly does have some interest in using the Aerial Ace TM for the Veilstone Gym, but the Air Cutter tutor works too if you have the shards for him. STAB U-Turn coming from 70 Atk isn't amazing, but it's chip with STAB in the many situations where you'll need Beautifly to leave the field, and with a SilverPowder boost it's even better. 

Dustox is the opposite of Mothim - instead of 2 solid offensive stats that can viably be used, Dustox has poor offense on both ends with 50 Atk and 50 SpA. This means it takes what it can gets and STAB modifiers help it a lot, so it doesn't discriminate between Bug Buzz and U-Turn and often likes running both. U-Turn as its only attack and just utility moves otherwise is pretty viable, but Psychic, Shadow Ball, Giga Drain, SolarBeam, and Sludge Bomb have some value on it too. 

Yanmega is a godly U-Turner and Bug STAB user because of Tinted Lens, no matter who it's hitting it'll do decent damage even coming from 76 Atk. Yanmega otherwise prefers to use its special movepool including Air Slash, Bug Buzz, Shadow Ball, AncientPower, Giga Drain, and SolarBeam coming from 116 SpA. Yanma's ability affects the viability of this - with speed boost you want to stay on the field and be fast, but tinted lens gives you a near unresisted U-Turn. 

Overall, most of the game's Bug/Flying types and the honorary Dustox prefer to primarily use their Special attacks, but they also really benefit from the power and utility of U-Turn. All of them can also set Sun for a teammate and pivot them in with a U-Turn and/or use SolarBeam, which is pretty cool.

What do you think of going mixed on these Bugs? Is it worth exploring? Are there any applications for going mixed I didn't mention? Leave a comment below with your thoughts. 

Sample Sets:

Mothim @ SilverPowder • U-Turn, Bug Buzz, Psychic, Air Slash

Beautifly @ SilverPowder • U-Turn, Giga Drain, Stun Spore, Morning Sun/Bug Buzz/Psychic/Shadow Ball

Dustox @ SilverPowder • U-Turn, Bug Buzz/Sludge Bomb, Psychic/Shadow Ball, Sludge Bomb/Light Screen/Toxic

Yanmega @ SilverPowder • U-Turn, Air Slash, 2 of Shadow Ball, Bug Buzz, Psychic, Giga Drain or AncientPower

Welcome to Breaking the Binary, a sporadic series of posts all about mixed attackers in Pokémon Platinum. With competitive minmaxing dominating the conversation about Pokémon viability and the design philosophy behind movepools and stat spreads changing in newer gens, Pokémon are often rigidly divided by the fandom into the categories of "special attacker" or "physical attacker." But for the in-game story, you're not facing EV trained opponents and thus don't need to EV train to keep up, so mixed attacking sets don't have the opportunity cost they have in PvP. Going mixed still has anti-synergy with setup moves, but it still can give many Pokémon access to STAB moves with better base power, strong coverage moves with useful types, and more useful niches. This series will be covering those applications. We won't talk about every Pokémon here, only ones that I believe legitimately benefit from going mixed, but those Pokémon are surprisingly large in number. Today we'll be talking about Golduck. I'll be talking about in-game but feel free to discuss PvP or battle facilities as well. 

Golduck is a Water-type Pokémon with about 80 in every stat, a decent but not great 85 speed, 78 Atk, and 95 SpA. Notable physical moves include Aqua Jet, Zen Headbutt, Dig, Brick Break, Return, and Shadow Claw. Notable Special moves include Surf, Ice Beam, Focus Blast, and Psychic. 

Golduck is a good Choice Specs user and Surf and Ice Beam are amazing, but you can describe its case for going mixed in two words: Perfect Coverage. Surf and Ice Beam come close to this already, but throwing any of the listed moves above in there make it truly perfect. Dig makes it truly perfect, able to super effectively hit Tentacruel who resists both of the above and fighting coverage, though Psychic or Zen Headbutt achieve the same purpose, and other water types are hit neutrally by any of its coverage moves. Dig is unequivocally a better type than Psychic though with more use cases and applications. Shadow Claw and Fighting coverage also are perfect together, and you can choose between the inaccurate fighting move in Focus Blast or the weak but accurate one in Brick Break.

I also think Return could see some use on Psyduck and Golduck in the midgame. Until you get Brine and shortly after Surf, Psyduck's strongest moves are 40 BP Water Gun and 50 BP Confusion. As you transition from early to midgame, these start to feel pretty weak, and Return's crazy base power can help Psyduck or Golduck work around that bad period. Brick Break, Shadow Claw, Dig, and Focus Blast are also available during this period to help with this problem. 

Overall, I think the case for mixed Golduck isn't the strongest by the time you get to endgame, but in the midgame it's a solid option, and there are still cases in the lategame where mixed Golduck is worth considering, especially if you hate Focus Blast.

What do you think of mixed Golduck? Is it worth exploring? Are there any applications for going mixed I didn't mention? Leave a comment below with your thoughts. 

Sample Sets:

Golduck @ NeverMeltIce • Surf, Ice Beam, Brick Break/Dig, Shadow Claw

Another run through Platinum down, with a team I had a ton of fun with - I am known to rag on Lucario in Platinum for coming very late in the game very underleveled, taking forever to catch up, having a relatively poor slate of matchups for the rest of the game, and having some issues both with making speed thresholds and ko benchmarks thanks to its awkward 90 base speed and many of its attacks having low base power.

But I like Lucario - it has a great design, it's cool in Smash Bros and I liked the movie it was in as a kid. And it's awesome in BW2 and XY. So what can I do to help it succeed? Hatch (or well, gen,) one at the very beginning of the game so it can contribute for longer without needing to play catchup, as well as be used in the earlygame where Steel/Fighting type is excellent rather than a bit of a liability. Throw several enablers and good partners onto the team, and invest every resource into making it good including vitamins, a bit of casual EV training, and the Earthquake TM, and I had a solid carry for a good amount of the game that became a little more situational by the end but still good.

Was this run enough to change my opinion on Lucario in Platinum? Probably not much - Kelly had an ideal nature, pretty ideal stats, and was traded in much earlier than you get it in the game. I included its stats for transparency - Jolly, 27 Speed IVs, a lot of time spent with Rich Boy Trey and Fisherman Andrew grinding exp and Atk and Speed IVs, this absolutely was not your standard playthrough Lucario, but it was still awesome seeing it do so well, and it did help me appreciate that with a +Speed nature, Lucario doesn't have nearly as many issues with its Speed - I ran a few calcs though and it wouldn't have made, for example, the Electivire speed benchmark, or multiple Infernape speed benchmarks, without the Jolly nature and good IV, and it wouldn't have made the Garchomp speed benchmark without the EV training.

Kelly ended up finishing off most bosses with Swords Dance. Only Candice was unassisted, usually this happened about halfway through the fight, but Barry, Candice, Cyrus, Volkner, and Cynthia were all good moments for it, and it carried my earlygame too. He even was able to serve as good Speed Control, dealing with problematic Pokémon like Infernape, and with Earthquake being a good contributor for the second half of the Flint fight!

The rest of the team was pretty sweet too, some shone in their own right and some were pretty cool enablers.

Pascal the Naive Persian was pretty cool, he was a great revenge killer with Fake Out + Return, better Speed Control than Lucario (he ended up with an insane 184 Speed since he had Exp Share while I was EV training Lucario,) and was a solid route clearer and was generically good in many boss fights thanks to his good speed, lack of poor matchups, and solid damage output.

Ariana the Timid Illumise was a decent support, Encore is a very powerful move that I got a lot of good use out of, and Charm actually went really hard. Her job was switching in on and dealing with Fighting types as well as beating Gardenia and other Grass types, she was also the team's only Ground resist, which was incredibly valuable. Being able to defang stuff with Charm or get them stuck with Encore was good for enabling others and also let her chip stuff down with Bug Buzz. By the end of the game her frailness was really becoming a problem however and she only briefly appeared in the Elite 4, to Charm and then still die to Heracross. I also forgot to give her back the Insect Plate after training.

Addison the Timid Plusle was actually so good. Another pretty fast team member with a final speed of 149, she was even better at Encoring stuff to enable Lucario and was also just a fast strong Thunderbolt user, a very valuable role in Platinum. She bodied Wake, cleared many Water routes for me, and also destroyed Lucian by Encoring Mime into Reflect, Nasty Plotting 3 times, then sweeping. That fast strong Thunderbolt as well as the Encore support was pretty integral in making the team work.

Bufu the Quirky Whiscash was like "the control group" against Lucario, and also complemented Lucario's many defensive liabilities well by eating up many hits and dealing with problematic Ground or Fire types. He was great in the midgame and vs the first 3 E4 members, and was often able to come out, eat up hits, and do solid damage in the lategame, but I did notice his stats falling off a little bit as I got later on. I'm still not totally sure if I think Whiscash is better than Gastrodon, that lategame falloff was noticeable, but it was still a great fixture on this team and something I could almost always depend on, in many cases when I couldn't depend on Kelly. I forgot to take Exp Share off of him for the League which hurt his combat a bit and also explains his level. He still cooked Bertha and helped with Flint, Lucario's bad e4 matchups

Spiff the Modest Deoxys-Defense was kind of niche and not amazing, for most of the game he didn't even eat up hits very well since 50 Base HP is garbage. His damage from Psychic was workable (comparable to Whiscash's special attacks, which also felt kinda weak,) but really he was constantly getting 2hkod by stuff when I led him in major battles. Spikes did some work against Flint and Cynthia, Toxic never really came up, Light Screen was good for Flint and Cynthia and he did Reflect a few times before I dropped it. Overall not amazing, but clearly had a role here and helped make Lucario Carry work as a strategy.

The Cynthia battle was quick and easy, with Deoxys leading, Screening, using Spikes 3 times, dying, Lucario comes out, Swords Dances 3 times, and swept. Game was played on my Nintendo Switch and the rules included Set Mode, Level Caps, and No Items in Battle. All Pokémon were genned except for Whiscash, who I caught in-game, and Deoxys, who I caught in FireRed. I had a lot of fun with this team and had a difficult time putting the game down, didn't even expect to play through the game again so soon (two hall of fames in one month!) but here I am. Also peep that Trainer ID