DPPt/HGSS Now I need ideas for a Machamp moveset...

[baratron]

One of these days, I really must get round to typing in all the movesets I've come up with on my own - just to prove that I can .

OK, so I'm having the same sort of trouble with Machamp that I was having with Snorlax, i.e. just too many moves to choose from. I want 1 or possibly 2 good Fighting moves to get STAB, 1 or 2 other good attack moves that use the normal Attack stat, and maybe 1 own-stat boosting move or an opponent-stat lowering move.

The choices for Fighting moves are:
Karate Chop - Fighting - power 50 accuracy 100 PP 25. Has a "high" critical-hit ratio, whatever that means (i.e. what is the % probability of the hits being critical?). Probably not much use for Colosseum because its power is too low, but useful for travelling round fighting because of its high PP. Hrm.

Revenge - Fighting - power 60 accuracy 100. Apparently doubles in power if you get hit by the enemy first. Does that mean in the same turn? Or just at any point beforehand?

Vital Throw - Fighting - power 70 accuracy 100. Makes you go last but "never" misses (does that mean it is guaranteed to hit regardless of opponent's evasiveness?).

Cross Chop - Fighting - power 100 accuracy 80. Also has a "high" critical hit ratio - but only 5 PP. Does the doubled power make up for the low PP and comparatively low accuracy?

I'm not considering Submission because it only has accuracy 80 and you take recoil damage. I'm not considering Dynamicpunch because Machamp doesn't learn it until lvl 59, which is too late for a level 50 Pokemon in Colosseum .

The choices for a non-Fighting attack move are:
Body Slam - Normal - power 85 accuracy 100. 30% chance of Paralysis. A really good move BUT I'll already have it on my team (on my Snorlax). Is it a better idea to go for something else to cover more options?

Rock Slide - Rock - power 75 accuracy 90. May cause Flinching. Not really sure what else it does (I get Rock Throw and Rock Blast and Rock Tomb and... all muddled up).

Facade - Normal - power 70 accuracy 100. Doubles in power if user is Poisoned, Paralysed or Burned. Useful for that reason.

Something else?

I've saved my game in an annoying place so I can't easily check the nature of the Machamp, but I'm pretty sure it has a crappy Sp Atk stat and fairly low speed, with high Atk, Def and Sp Def.

 

[Linkachu]

I gotta stop replying to topics when I'm tired ^^;

Vital Throw - Fighting - power 70 accuracy 100. Makes you go last but "never" misses (does that mean it is guaranteed to hit regardless of opponent's evasiveness?

Yeppers. Vital Throw is basically the Swift/Shock Wave of Fighters (except for the "going last" hitch) ^^

Does the doubled power make up for the low PP and comparatively low accuracy?

Depending on your number of opponents and luck it can. One Cross Chop from Machamp should be enough to either KO your opponent or leave it seriously injured. It may not have a lot of PP, but if you boost its points to 8 and you're only fighting 3 opponents at a time (aka. Colosseum battles) then chances are you'd win or be KO'd before running out of PP.

Not really sure what else it does (I get Rock Throw and Rock Blast and Rock Tomb and... all muddled up).

Its main usefulness for Machamp is taking down Flying-types, but it can also be a nice attack for 2 on 2 battles.

Facade - Normal - power 70 accuracy 100. Doubles in power if user is Poisoned, Paralysed or Burned. Useful for that reason.

Considering that Guts and Facade do the same thing, giving you not doubled but quadrupled power, this would be an awesome one to stick on (especially for 2 on 2's). (Edit: Where was my head? Guts only multiples the damage by 1.5... Still a heafty amount when Facade is involved, tho.)

And I'm sorry to say it but I'm too tired to suggest any movesets right now ^^;
Hopefully some of this can help you consider the attacks differently, though.

 

[Mawile]

Earthquake (high base damage and 100% accuracy), and Bulk Up (to boost Machamp's awesome Attack stat even higher), would be some good options too.

 

[baratron]

Okie - so I've managed to narrow down the possibilities a bit.

Vital Throw - Fighting - power 70 (goes up to 105 with STAB) accuracy 100. Never misses - BUT only 10 PP.

Rock Slide - Rock - power 75 accuracy 90. May cause Flinching.

Facade - Normal - power 70 accuracy 100. Machamp has Guts ability so its attack is x 1.5 if it has a status condition - and then Facade doubles in power if user is Poisoned, Paralysed or Burned. Nice combination.

Bulk Up - boosts Attack & Defence one notch.

I think I don't want to use Earthquake because someone else on my team will already have it, but I might be wrong. Hrm.

I saw in another thread the suggestion of Substitute + Focus Punch. Substitute uses 1/4 of your HP to create a decoy, which'll absorb any damage the enemy would do while you charge up Focus Punch. Seems like an impressive combination with Focus Punch's power 150 (225 with STAB!) accuracy 100, but takes up two slots. Hmm.

Depending on your number of opponents and luck it can. One Cross Chop from Machamp should be enough to either KO your opponent or leave it seriously injured. It may not have a lot of PP, but if you boost its points to 8 and you're only fighting 3 opponents at a time (aka. Colosseum battles) then chances are you'd win or be KO'd before running out of PP.

Yeah, the problem with Cross Chop is always that luck factor . Sod's law dictates that your attack will miss always at the critical moment, and will critical hit sometime you don't really need it to...

The biggest problem I'd have is the 5 PP. 80% probability means that, in theory, 4 out of 5 attacks should hit - but in practice it's more likely to be 3 out of 5 (I could probably back this up with actual maths about the expectation of X and Bayes' Theorem of Conditional Probability, but I can't be arsed) or less, because Sod's law will apply . I can't easily boost the PP because I don't have any spare PP Ups or PP Maxes, despite having cleared out the Trick House in Ru/Sa a few times in different games. My pkmn with Pickup ability always seem to pick up Revives, Rare Candies or TM10s and never seem to pick up PP Ups. At any moment I generally have something like 14 Rare Candies sitting around on each cartridge . And I have several Pokemon with (good) low PP moves that are waiting for PP Ups already.

I guess the options are either:
Vital Throw (or Cross Chop), Rock Slide, Facade, Bulk Up/Earthquake.
or
Substitute, Focus Punch, Rock Slide, Facade.

Dunno which to choose, though.

I really wish you could buy PP Ups somewhere. And it's going to get even worse with Emerald, because apparently the items picked up depends on the Pickup pkmn's level, and PP Ups go from being a 4 or 5% probability in Ru/Sa/FR/LG to a 3% probability if the pkmn is level 81-90 and 5% probability if it's level 91-100! (and 0% probability if it's below level 81!). I mean, who actually advances their Pickup Pokemon?! (not least of all because Meowth and Phanpy lose Pickup ability when they evolve).

Meh.

 

[Linkachu]

I guess I need to realize most people don't restart their games as many times as I do. As of now I have excess PP Ups because I haven't been using any ^_^;;

Have you considered Brick Break at all? It may not be as powerful as Cross Chop, but depending on your Machamp's speed it may help you take out the opponent before they hit you (something Vital Throw could never do). I won't downgrade the useage of VT, tho. My Hariyama had it and it worked wonders knowing he'd never miss.

It's hard for me to say which set to use since I haven't trained a Machamp yet this Gen, but knowing me I'd go for the first set. Bulk Up is a great supporting attack if you don't have EQ (or don't want to use it yet).

 

[baratron]

So, er, how often do you restart your games?

I just restarted Ruby for the third time (I have a Treecko! For the first time ever!), but it's the only one I'm actually restarting. Unless you count playing the first 5 minutes of Fire Red approximately 25 million times (or without exaggeration, about 30) to get three female starters. My plan was to start with a team of the three starters and see how far I got - whether it was possible just to supplement that team with another 3 pkmn. It was thwarted by the fact that Charmeleon and Wartortle seemed much more powerful than Ivysaur and/or there were a bunch of other Grass pkmn that seemed better move and stat-wise.

I've heard about people doing things like going through with an all-Grass or all-Water team. I'm tempted to try playing with an all-Grass team, but I'd have to avoid the pitfall that I mentioned in the Snorlax thread about constantly ending up with near-identical movesets on similar type Pokemon... And, tbh, I get frustrated enough now when I find a strategy isn't possible with the particular set of Pokemon I have with me at the time - how annoying would it be to have no one with you who was e.g. immune to fire?!

topic drift... hrm :roll:.

 

[arek]

Ok let's jsut say I' m not muchof a battler when it came to Ru/SA's generation back in my day of the ancient yesteryears of what was known as competetive Red/Blue battling and the beginign of the metalics generation I could come up with some descent movesets.

I really have no clue what machamp can learn anymore and maybe one of these days when I finished sapphire for the first time I'll get colleseum lol. But if I remmeber correctly Cross Chop does wonders with Machamp. In your typical 3vs3 battle 5 is mroe than enough PP. Wonder if Nintendo fixed stadium's focus attack problem in colleseum.

Machamp @ Kings Rock
Rock Slide
Cross Chop
Reflect (now if they changed his abilit to learn this then bleh)
Earthquake

I remember once havign a Machamp wipe out a whole team with that mvoeset (light screen can always go over reflect if you believe you'll be fighting a psychic). Have to say I had enough trouble with finding mvoes for the first 251 pokemon through rbsg etc. Really to tell the truth I for some reason couldn't get into Ruby and Sapphire, yet I still find myself replaying red and blue every so often battling it out in a friendly game of Stadium.

Pokemon seems to be more about offense in the Ru/Sa gen as opposed to back in RBY/GSC it was more about startegy.

Back in the days when Pseudo-Hazers had to be part of a team. Baton passers are almost now extinct due to the power offense that most teams consist of. Anymore it's a slugfest. I believe Pokemon has regressed when it comes to forming teams. I harkon back to the days of double team rest startegies that weakened the amount of mvoes your opponet had. I mean logicallly they really weren't to bad to battle. I harken to the days of Pimpicate (otherwise known as a Raticate with Super Fang Blizzard Thunderbolt Fire Blast) (I'd really have to ask Captain Biotch on that one. But it was a day when people would try different movesets.

 

[Linkachu]

So"]do[/b] you restart your games?

Not counting the first two gens, which I restarted oober amounts of times, I've played through Ruby once (160+ hours), Sapphire three times, and Pokemon Colosseum twice. Then I have FR and LG with free TMs/PPs up for grabs. And yeah, when I say restart I mean straight through the games. Haven't done it as much this time because it takes a lot longer to play through these games (+35 hours or so for me), but as soon as I get everything in order I plan to play through Sapphire yet again.

Pokemon seems to be more about offense in the Ru/Sa gen as opposed to back in RBY/GSC it was more about startegy.

Very much so disagree, especially with 2 on 2 battling part of the mix now. The best Colosseum Battle Mode opponents were the ones who didn't go all-out offensive; they're the ones who did something for their team mate (ie. Toxic on a Guts using Pokemon). There are also some great baton passers now, like Ninjask. I dunno... To me the gameplay has changed a little but nothing major. The weak Pokemon are still being used as much as they were back in the RYB days (the days of Blastoise, Charizard, Venusaur teams...). Breeding meant basically nothing to me in G/S - now it's one of the most important things for building my teams.

If anything, you can't call the new games less balanced than the old

 

[arek]

lol Guess it's all a matter of opinion.

The gameplay hasn't changed but visiting random Pokemon forums and ask for a moveset I usually mostly get all offensive moves. Then back in the day I'd get some usefulness out of them.
Haven't really played much of 2v2 battles myself. One of these days I'll get around to finishing Sap then again I'll probably buy Leaf Green before that ever happens. (got through it on the Jap ROM after it's release even got Deoxys with the patch to obtain all the needed tickets). For some reason I had fun playing a game in Japanese that was pretty much a remake than a brand new game. Strange aint it. I guess I'm just to old school with Pokemon. lol.

 

[Linkachu]

Well, guess it's better than being a Poke-Hater :wink:
I've basically moved forward with the series as the games have, making the 3rd generation my favourite yet. If you've read any of my other rants you'd see how much I love all the new stuff (natures, abilities, etc.) and, for me at least, my battling has never been better. Back in the old days ALL of my movesets were offence... except maybe the rare SD or T-Wave. Nowadays I usually have at least something support. I still have all-offence Pokes, yeah, but sometimes you just need 'em to get the dirty work done :twisted:

And now, back to the topic at hand ^^

 

[baratron]

Not counting the first two gens"]

Right. Well, it took me about 100 hours to "finish" Sapphire, because I had no idea what I was doing for most of it. When I discovered that "most" people finish in around 30 hours and even the really dense usually manage it in under 50, I decided to start again from scratch just to see. But I didn't want to wipe my existing save game. I'd bought a second-hand Ruby cartridge for trading purposes and planned to wipe it straight away so it would be "my" game, but I discovered that traded pkmn gain xp more quickly, so started using it as a dumping ground for pkmn I needed to advance quickly. Eventually I started a new game on the cartridge, but I only got about 20 hours into it before I got distracted.

It "only" took me 70 hours to "finish" Leaf Green, but that was still finishing to the extent of catching most of the Pokemon possible and visiting all the side areas. I did Fire Red as a speed run, avoiding any unnecessary side areas, and became champion after ~25 hours. But then it took me another 15 hours to get the Ruby and (mostly) Sapphire plate! Having gone to that much hassle, I'm not going to wipe either of those games or start another game on another cartridge - not when I need the Ruby and Sapphire plates to trade with Pokemon Box :roll:.

See also exciting topic here, and minor brain meltdown of the "by the time I'm 30 I will probably have spent a WHOLE YEAR OF MY LIFE playing video games" type.

 

[Linkachu]

CORRECTION - I have not played Ruby 250 hours. It's only 164 hours... This is why I should never recall anything from memory ops:

Do you start each time catching fresh pkmn, or trade across from your other games?

Well, if you saw my FR/LG rant about egg trading, usually what I do is breed for specific PokeEggs on one game (ie. Ruby) and trade 'em over to my new game (ie. Sapphire). This allows me to work the Pokemon up from level 5 without worrying about boosted stats (which overall make your Pokemon weaker, at least for awhile) and train ones you normally can't catch near the beginning of the game. Because of FR/LG's trading restrictions, though, I can't do this for those games... Which really, really, REALLY pisses me off. But oh well... I've dealt with it

Right. Well, it took me about 100 hours to "finish" Sapphire, because I had no idea what I was doing for most of it. When I discovered that "most" people finish in around 30 hours and even the really dense usually manage it in under 50, I decided to start again from scratch just to see. But I didn't want to wipe my existing save game. I'd bought a second-hand Ruby cartridge for trading purposes and planned to wipe it straight away so it would be "my" game, but I discovered that traded pkmn gain xp more quickly, so started using it as a dumping ground for pkmn I needed to advance quickly. Eventually I started a new game on the cartridge, but I only got about 20 hours into it before I got distracted.

Actually, now that I think of it, 35+ hours for R/S isn't an accurate depiction of the time I usually spend on them. Last time I played Sapphire my save data was either near, or over, 50 hours, and I'm sure my first time through wasn't much quicker. I always fight every trainer I can ^^

 

[Crabmeat]

I have way to much free time....On my last Ruby game i had 500+ hours and my first ever ruby game had 250+ I'm nearing 300 on my current one only something like 85 hours on LG.