Why Accuracy is Close to Everything - The Heatran Theorem

foreign [Music] we're all about cramming our Pokemon especially our starters full of as many stab moves as possible it tends to be the case that you will have both the stronger more inaccurate option like your fire blasts your hydro pumps and the more accurate higher PP option like your flame throwers and surfs the competitive seat is not so lenient with what it allows for regarding optimized move sets there are too many branches of Pokemon must cover with its four moves for it to be wasting two of them on the same roll in short you have to choose between fire blast and flamethrower between hydro pump and surf before the battle even starts not on the turn you're going to use them this leads to one of the oldest debates in Pokemon do you go with the stronger less accurate option whose extra power can grab Kos that would otherwise elude you but can also deal with a whopping zero percent on turns or do you go with the weaker option that despite the downgrade and power making it less out and out threatening to the opponent is always going to connect when you need to there isn't always a clear-cut answer and there so many nuances with this kind of part of the game so we're going to explore just how important accuracy is in this video the heat Ram theorem but first before we talk about how important accuracy is let's be accurate there's only one mobile RPG that has hundreds of Champions to collect and that game is the sponsor of this video rage Shadow Legends rage Shadow Legends is one of the biggest mobile RPGs in the world and did I mention hundreds of Champions because that is the best part about rage Shadow Legends leveling up your Champions by doing the campaign and then using the rewards to require even better Champions I love looking through every faction and seeing all of their champions my favorite new faction is by far the shadow kid the coolest ones being fancy who has two heated katanas masamoto who is the least edgy looking of them but is still sick and gory 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description and I'll see you on the battlefield first we must acknowledge that there is a limit for what is considered reasonable the debate is generally between the given examples those being fire blast with his 85 accuracy and hydro pump with its 80 those are as low as you're reasonably going to go for a stab or important coverage put it this way the debate is never between Thunderbolt and thunder or ice beam and blizzard because thunder and blizzard sit at 70 accuracy Which is far too unreliable there are a few exceptions of course pretty much always revolving around thunder in Generations 3 and especially two this idea doesn't always apply because games are slower paced enough for a Miss to not be game breaking and the Pokemon are often bulky enough to require the extra strength to break through this is most prominent in GSC zapdos's Thunder being its biggest weapon though one will also occasionally see thunder Jirachi and even Tyranitar in advance beyond that one will only see such inaccurate moves being used either with the support of their respective weathers rain and hail that makes them perfect accurate or in The Fringe case of their truly not being another option Gen 5 reuniclist for example sometimes runs Thunder because it doesn't learn Thunderball if it did it almost surely would go with the consistency of t-bolt [Music] we also must consider the fact that accuracy may not be the only factor in choosing between such moves as mentioned in the introduction the more accurate moves also have much more PP you only get eight fire blasts and hydro pumps but you get a whopping 24 flamethrowers and surfs in short games the pp Factor might not be as impactful but there are all sorts of tactics that can quickly make the choice to use these moves as something to be taken advantage of turning their existence against their opponent the most obvious is the move protect which can be used on more aggressive teams as well as slower ones but there's also the pressure ability not just exclusive to defensive Pokemon which has the already low PP of these moves even the moves substitute a staple on offense can make the use of fire blast miserable doubly Soul actually since in addition to stealing PP it also forces fire blast to hit multiple times speaking of needing to hit multiple times that's another downside of the hydro versus surf debate you need to Simply surf the opponent twice to win sure no problem you need to hydro the opponent twice to win well that's a much riskier your proposition since he needs to get an 80 chance twice meaning your odds of Victory are really closer to 64 percent well not exactly since even this simplified scenario you can also crit one of those hydros but those are also not exactly great odds the flip side of this coin that makes this such a potential dilemma of course is that many offensive Pokemon might not quite be as impactful in their threat level without the higher base power of their moves bringing out the full extent of their potential strength when dealing with the threatening Pokemon like Heatran or Greninja what makes them so potentially overwhelming to the point where they threaten to Brute Force the opponent with the slightest chip damage it's just how hard they hit with fire blast or hydro pump you really have to be careful about switching clefable into them for example however when they swap those moves out for flamethrower or surf well they still hit hard and it'd be silly to suggest otherwise as there are still powerful Pokemon however opponents tend to breathe a sigh of relief when they see the opponent isn't hitting them as hard as they could be it means they are able to leverage their bulk more easily this doesn't mean just include making it tougher for bulky Pokemon to obtain stand them over the course of a game but also in threatening and Landing one-hit chaos these Pokemon need in several key matchups such as heat round or specs water against a bulky Pokemon that drops to the harder hit but survives the weaker one like bronzong or Tyranitar it's a tough Catch-22 this ability to utilize bulk if the opponent goes with the safer option is something far more consistently reliable than hoping for the move to eventually miss it always seems that just when you need that Infamous accuracy to work against your opponent they wind up going eight for eight on hydro pump when missing even one would have given you the game then again the higher PP and greater reliability of surf hitting allows it to be used repeatedly thus increasing chances for devastating Critical Hits while flamethrower can even burn really the accuracy dilemma serves to highlight just how much RNG there is in Pokemon at every corner one way to look at it is that it depends on your team and its play style if your team aims to end the game quickly need the extra power sure misses are more costly and shorter games but the idea is that you wouldn't be getting the chaos you absolutely need if you go with the weaker move anyway thus defeating the point in the first place there are so many factors that go into these things like teammates for one that the sum answer really winds up as it depends since even the best most experienced players can't seem to agree speaking of RNG this is also why scarlet and lava plume have emerged as popular accuracy friendly alternatives to their harder hitting counterparts especially after Gen 6 nerfed the base power of the stronger moves so the disparity between them was lower what skulled and Bloom lack in direct power they make up for worth their increased obnoxious 30 chance for a burn so they can both maintain accuracy and PP and get the extra power of their harder hitting counterparts in their own roundabout way all right of course fire blast versus flamethrower sometimes versus lava plume as well and hydro pump versus Surf versus skulld are far from the only examples another famous one and probably the most extreme is Draco meteor versus dragon pulse this one has a major difference though in that the power disparity between meteor and pulse is greater than that between the two classic examples whereas blasts and pumps sit at 110 versus lamethrower and serves 90 or 120 versus 95 pre-gen sixnurs draco's base 130 is much higher and pre-gen 6 Nerf it was even stronger sitting at a whopping base 140. Draco is so much stronger that players will take all its flaws over the weaker Dragon pulse the lower PP the half special attack after a use the lower accuracy it helps though that players don't really consider Draco meteor an inaccurate move in the way they do fire blast and that's because Draco meter sits at a far more comfortable 90 hit rate it's the sub 90 stuff that starts to get people wondering funnily enough Draco meteor's lower Miss chance has even been known to hell open at times the opponent might bait a Draco and switch to something to absorb it and get the Draco user to minus two special attack thus neutralizing it only for Draco to miss and the threat to persist you can see this in magerna's choice of fairy stab as well Lord Cannon yes dazzling gleam never now if magearna got moonblast there'd be a debate and it strange that it doesn't by the way but as it stands now it takes the less accurate lower PP special attack dropping option for its insane strength relative to the next option every time another example in this Vein One More drastic extreme and thus arguably more emblematic of the concept is how stoneage has completely eclipsed rockslide as an offensive move in singles the base power jumped from slide 75 to edges 100 is so huge in enabling threats like Choice band Tyranitar and Mega Aerodactyl that they are completely willing to put up with stone Edge's 80 accuracy Stone Edge used to be called the worst move in the game for both players in a battle because it also has a high crit rate so it seems like it either missed or crit but it tended to miss a lot more for some reason stoneage has historically seemed to miss a lot more than hydro pump though that's not to say hydro pump doesn't also miss constantly still it goes to show just how important the power boost is in their case they're willing to discard Rock slice 90 accuracy and even 30 Flinch rate because it's 25 less points of Base power means it doesn't even come close to the way Stone Edge immediately drops opponent foreign since we mentioned the title of the worst move in the game allow us to present what has clearly unilaterally earned that honor Focus Miss I mean Focus blast Focus blast is not just aggravating because it's 70 accuracy is absolutely pathetic this is hardly better than a two-thirds chance which doesn't sound so bad on paper Until you realize that people already regularly lose their minds over the woes of 85 fire blast to say nothing of hydropop and Stone Edge at 80 percent what really makes Focus less horrendous though is not just this necessary place on many important Pokemon movesets it's also the fact that these Pokemon do not have an alternative there is no choice between Focus blast and it's weaker more accurate counterpart it's Focus blast or bust if you don't use Focus blast on these Pokemon you may as well not even use them at all it is so crucial to their functioning and the worst part these are amazing Pokemon that you want to be using this is why Focus blast is the epitome of the necessary evil ass respect of inaccurate moves now wait you might say a move called Aura Sphere exists yes yes it does but thanks to its strangely limited distribution the best Pokemon around do not get access to it we're talking Alakazam Mega and non-mega alike we're talking reuniclist and focus blast is far more crucial in aspect to its upset than thunder which is a luxury we're talking Gengar we're talking Mega Charizard Y we're talking tapu Lele no move has lost more otherwise won games than Focus blast all that Zam or Gengar great as they are at dominating teams will need to do to finish things off as blast Tyranitar heat ran or Pharaoh Thorne or pre-gen 6 clefable into Oblivion and then the move misses and that's it if these Pokemon got or sphere rest assured Focus blast will never be seen again instead their alternative is uh the absolutely poultry hidden power fighting which perfectly epitomizes the concept of you might hit but you're not actually going to hurt anything so don't even bother here's how terrible Focus blast is if you need to hit two out of two Focus blasts you have a 49 chance to do so basically a coin flip a coin flip in which your opponent is actually slightly favored you are the lucky one if you hit both of those blasts some players have tried everything possible to make these Pokemon work without Focus blast two decent results but they just become so much easier to deal with without the move then again forcing your opponent to hit one Focus blast let alone multiple is actually pretty decent odds for victory and what if the opponent chooses to not use these Focus blast users well seeing as that means your opponent is choosing not to break some of the scariest Pokemon in the game then that makes that a win as well all right there are other necessary evils in terms of accuracy though none quite so drastic as Focus blast tornado styrion really does not enjoy running a 70 accurate stab in Hurricane but it is its strongest move by far and it's generally bulky enough to where it can afford to miss one or two so it generally gets by especially since hurricane brings with it a nasty 30 confusion rate still some oras Tornadus even run air slash for the Boost to 95 accuracy despite the insane drop from 110 to 75 base power that's how important actually hitting the move can be of course it helps that air slash has a 30 Flinch rate another example is heat ran who for its fire staff chooses not fire blast but magma store which is even less accurate but comes with the ability to remove the opponent's ability to switch out and rack up significant extra chip damage on them the trapping effect is particularly important in allowing Heatran to forcibly remove an opposing wall for the benefit of a teammate guaranteeing it picks up its Target these moves are necessary evils but unlike Focus blast it's usually only most the time and they do have at least a little bit of negotiability especially as hurricane and mega storm in gen 7 are often equipped with a corresponding Z Crystal which can for one turn power them up and remove their accuracy woes foreign the truly focused blast tier Irreplaceable moves are those like willowist toxic leech seed and pulse gen 7 thunderwave whose accuracy are often lamented but there is no other alternative for them and they hit reliably or reliably and enough in the case of willow wisp so they're used this actually brings us to the idea that though accuracy is mostly thought of in terms of attacking moves these support moves as accuracy can be similarly influential in battles we don't tend to think of least sea toxic or willowist misses as game breaking in the same way we might think of the most immediate and dramatic effect of Draco meteor but this is a bias that overlooks just how key they can be many Pokemon are dealt with defensively through indirect means and a Pokemon that would be perfectly manageable if hit by such a move can quickly spiral out of control should the move Miss Celebi leech sees the Salamence as a dragon dances the men's might do some damage but it'll be dealt with leech scene misses the game is probably over Garchomp swords dances and the opponent goes for toxic same deal all right the necessary evil style of inaccurate moves brings a level of Simplicity to the idea that isn't really present in deciding whether you want power or accuracy you simply must go with that option there is a flip side of source to this coin though it is rarer now it's not quite the opposite because the choice is still technically there but one of the two choices is quite a dumb one this refers to the idea of Overkill or greed if you prefer it's when a Pokemon is so hilariously strong that you really don't need the stronger option because it's going to be destroying everything anyway so all you tend to wind up doing in practice is give your opponent an out by choosing the move that can miss in the team Builder the classic example is Mega Charizard Y whose drought powered fire staff is ludicrously strong smashing through even most resists with ease While most neutral targets get similarly destroyed so what do you do use fire blast of course and wind up killing nothing because you missed something that you actually hit super effectively seriously the ozardwise flamethrower is already insanely strong there's no need for Overkill another example Apple might be Spec's Ash Greninja under rain a monster Soul strong even pre-evolution that pretty much all that's keeping the opponent in the game in many circumstances is the fact that it might miss Hydro pumps surf tends to be superior on it for this reason [Music] foreign now at the very beginning we mentioned how competitive Pokemon don't get to just load up on nothing but stab moves but some Pokemon are fortunate or good enough to be able to Keldeo is the most famous example its coverage move pool famously lacking Ice Beam is so sparse that it regularly runs both hydropomp and surf or skull if you have a Pokemon like this you're able to have the best of both worlds sure you'll still miss an occasional Hydro but if you do it's because you needed to use it for its power at that point in battle not because you didn't have the more accurate move as an option Heatran has been seen on many occasions doing the same running both overheat or magma storm alongside flamethor or lava plume in fact that is part of why we chose heat ran to illustrate this theorem but the main reason was that every part of it applies to this monster it is the epitome of fire blast versus flamethrower except it's complicated even further because it also occasionally Ventures into necessary evil territory with Magma storm and has another save option that can consistently wind up compensating for his lower power through a reliable secondary effect distribute in the form of the burn Distributing lava plume Heatran is also one of the most important Pokemon in the game for its resistances to such an enormous slew of attacks and is one of the biggest reasons for forcing Focus blast coverage on Pokemon whose stabs it can switch into placing itself on the other side of the necessary evil concept there's little worse than attempting to focus Blaster way through a heat ran that's draining your PP with protect possibly substitute and trying to burn you with lava plume yes sub protect Tran also factor into making players shy away from low accuracy moves because it loves preying on their low PP oh and Heatran has been a long time user of willowless and toxic as well it can completely ruin opponents switching into or attempting to set up on it so long as they hit even if the move doesn't have as dramatic an impact as a Rob KO there are so many different nuances factoring into accuracy but Heatran is incredible at demonstrating that it is indeed an integral part of the game that must be considered thanks for watching everyone and as always if you liked the video and you want to see more be sure to subscribe to false right gaming for more weekly Pokemon content and in the comments I want to know where do you fall on this accuracy debate and thank you so much to our patrons for continuing support of our videos and thank you to everyone else watching as well [Music] and follow my currently social media platforms and that's all I got see you next time everyone [Music] thank you

Channel: False Swipe Gaming

Views: 321,942

Keywords: Pokemon, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Red, Pokemon Blue, Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Gold, Pokemon Silver, Pokemon Crystal, Pokemon Ruby, Pokemon Sapphire, Pokemon Emerald, Pokemon Diamond, Pokemon Pearl, Pokemon Platinum, Pokemon Black, Pokemon White, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, Pokemon Ultra Sun, Pokemon Ultra Moon, Pokemon Sword, Pokemon Shield, Competitive Pokemon, Smogon, VGC, False Swipe Gaming, Heatran, Pokemon Scarlet, Pokemon Violet

Id: U3Zl58KadHI

Length: 19min 19sec (1159 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 08 2023