RBY OU Tauros [Done]

Mate, have you actually used it? I know the theorymon as well as you do and I'm telling you it does not work in practice. Your example is so specific as to be absurd- it demands that the two of the opponent's pokemon are at very specific % AND that they have a specific team composition. Even the example you give is bad, as Lap only has a 27.7% chance to 2HKO, while Cloy falls short altogether (the only ones that cleanly do it are Moltres and Articuno). For most special attackers 25% HP means the difference between a 2HKO and a 3HKO so you gain nothing from running such a terrible move

 

Substitute? Toxic? You poor, delusional fools. Tremble before the mighty Thortos!

Tauros Thunder vs. Starmie: 139-164 (43 - 50.7%) -- 2.2% chance to 2HKO

Thunder + Hyper Beam is a guaranteed 2HKO, as is Thunder + a Body Slam crit. But wait, there's more! A Thunder crit is a guaranteed OHKO if Starmie is about 85% or less.

Tauros Thunder vs. Cloyster: 153-180 (50.4 - 59.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

That's right--Thunder is guaranteed to 2HKO one of its arch nemeses, and OHKOs with a crit.

Tauros Thunder vs. Lapras: 142-168 (30.6 - 36.2%) -- 57.1% chance to 3HKO

One Thunder almost ensures that Tauros will get the 3HKO with Body Slam + Hyper Beam, while a crit lets it 2HKO with Beam.

Tauros Thunder vs. Kingler: 209-246 (66.7 - 78.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Tired of Kingler turning you into Outback Steakhouse? Now you can finally enjoy some Red Lobster (they serve crab there).

 

"Guaranteed" is a poor choice of words when talking about Thunder. It's less ridiculous than Toxic and Substitute, yes, but I'm not 100% sure it merits a mention. I'd have to run the numbers on the KO chances after taking into account crits and Thunder's awful accuracy.

 

It's a joke post, obviously.

 

Apologies. Having Toxic taken seriously must have broken my sarcasm detector.

 

Sometimes Tauros feels like taking a nap. Let it indulge with one of its best moves, Rest, which allows it to beat opponents if they get fp'd multiple times. It can also PP stall ReflectLax (not DeceitLax, which runs Hyper Beam).

If Substitute is useful because it can block a critical hit on a specific turn, then Rest is useful if the opponent gets paralyzed on a specific turn.

 

In all honesty when I saw this when I calced it one time I wondered by Tbolt is usually the OO option rather than Thunder.

But yeah ok I guess Sub does suck a little too much, and since literally everyone is furious about it I guess I'll remove it.

Now to seriously debate Thunder... (and rest? PP stalling lax is actually kind of cool... also you could play more ballsy with Tauros early game, rest it up midgame, wake it up, and use it lategame... has anyone tried Rest Tauros??)

 

Thunder's KO profile looks like:

OHKO: 13.4%
2HKO: 43.1% (cumulative 56.5%)
3HKO: 25.0% (cumulative 81.5%)
4HKO: 11.2% (cumulative 92.8%)

Thunderbolt's looks like this:

2HKO: 38.1%
3HKO: 61.2% (cumulative 99.3%)
4HKO: 0.7% (cumulative 100%)

So Thunder has a 13.4% chance of OHKO and an 18.5%-higher chance of 2HKO or better but a 17.7%-higher chance of 4HKO or worse and a 7.2%-higher chance of 5HKO or worse (the possibility of paralysis is also there, though fairly minor, and slightly advantages Thunderbolt). Cloyster usually 3HKOs, so Tbolt is better at ensuring Cloy doesn't win, but Thunder is better at preventing it from Exploding.

That's against Cloyster. Against Kingler Tbolt already gets the 2HKO and crit OHKO so Thunder is bad. Against unboosted Slowbro Tbolt is better; crit Tbolt + Hbeam KOes and Tbolt + BSlam + Hbeam is 69% to KO. Against other Waters it's mostly moot because the better paralysis chance with Body Slam makes it the better choice.

 

Paralyzing Lapras only matters if it gets fp'd on the second turn, whereas Thunder + Body Slam + Hyper Beam has a pretty high chance to 3HKO. It's also far more likely that Thunder will hit than getting a paraslam.

Thunder is also better for Articuno. Thunder + Body Slam + Hyper Beam is an almost guaranteed 3HKO (if all three moves do the absolute minimum, Articuno loses 97.5%).

Edit: if Fire Blast is an OO for "beating" Tauros (it doesn't, by the way. You need it to not miss, get the burn on the first turn, AND avoid a crit on the subsequent two turns), then Thunder is an OO for 2HKOing Cloyster and 3HKOing (on average) Lapras.

 

Putting Thunder into OO then.

 

There's the paraslam + fp possibility, the potential of a crit T2 making Thunder's extra damage (but not a miss) moot, and the potential for Hyper Beam to fail to KO. There is admittedly also the possibility of a 2HKO via Thunder crit.

Also, I thought you were joking?

 

If you get a really low roll with one move you'll miss out on the 3HKO, but the odds are still higher than with Thunderbolt, which depends on a 20% crit rate rather than hitting a move 70% of the time. When you factor in stupid luck like a paraslam + fp, Body Slam crit, etc, I don't know what the overall odds are that standard Tauros over Thortos beats Lapras, but I assume that the latter still has a higher chance.

Yes, I'm joking, as I would never run Thortos, but seeing the merits of Substitute being argued for so passionately as well as actually advocating Toxic and Fire Blast make me feel bad for Thunder, which is surely an OO if Toxic is. Also, it's funny seeing what kind of theories one can come up with when discussing OOs--let's not forget the PP draining machine, Restos.

 

There's players who are somewhat legit (moreso in other gens, but nonetheless, a couple have played RBY in SPL LUL) who actually run Fire Blast... :shrug: I try and tell them they're bad, they don't listen

 

I came across someone recently who went first in a tauros ditto and connected with a burn... was quite annoying.

My few attempts with fireblast (namely on Golem) resulted in about as many misses as I had burns. Go figure.

 

TuffHunter's hurt by the burn!

(In all seriousness, burns are 25.4% to misses' 15.6%; for small sample sizes that's not unexpected.)

 

lol Smogon. The same place where people extoll the glory of Substitute Tauros and Fire Blast Snorlax, and advocate the existence of Machamp.

 

Noone does any of that on there (at least at their top level).

NB one of the fire blast tauros users came top of our ADV player rankings

he just doesnt play much rby on here

 

Fire Blast Snorlax was on their Snorlax analysis for years (around 10, I'd wager). I don't care for Smogon enough to see if it was finally edited or not, but even the users on RBY2K10 had a field day with that one. Similarily, Machamp was touted as good in its analysis.

One of the Smogon players mentioned Substitute Tauros in a SPL thread, saying that it can be good. That's a joke, honestly.

What's NB supposed to be short for? Also, saying "Smogon player" is kind of strange considering most who play RBY also play here. I imagine the list of Smogon-exclusive competent RBY players (people who play RBY regularly, not once or twice a year) is rather short.

 

The analyses are not representative of the Smogon players' skill level

Nota bene | Define Nota bene at Dictionary.com

Yeah it is a rather short list but I'd put Tobes / Nails / BKC [autumn leaves on here] (all of them use fire blast tauros) on that list at least, maybe KratosMana too [Anti on here]... plus there's plenty I'm sure who play it a bit more casually and only play RBY Cup and maybe one or two other tournaments :shrug:

 

If it's on the analysis, people have the right to make fun of it until it's changed. If nobody likes it, then it's on them. In fact, it's better to learn from one's mistakes instead of hide behind them with other people.

So three people who never achieved any notable and/or consistent success (the truth hurts, no matter how politically incorrect it may be in the eyes of certain people here) in RBY used a bad move a few times. What is that supposed to mean? If three people used Substitute Tauros, would that make it useful? That means all I have to do is use Thunder Tauros and it will be regarded a success. You've got to do more than arbitrary name dropping to ascertain the legitimacy of a move (at least name drop players from here if you're going to do so). Also, what does this have to do with Fire Blast Snorlax?

Yeah, playing a few games on the ladder and two tournaments a year is not playing a gen consistently. That's like calling me a consistently productive ADV player (10 years ago I certainly was, but certainly not now).