kyeugh

:( that's not fun

Exactly! We believe 75% of the universe is unobservable matter, meaning we simply don't know what it looks like! not to mention that everything, from the inner workings of stars to the singularities of black holes, is all derived and theoretical meaning the entire field could change in an instant with the right discovery.

Space? Boring? There are billions upon billions of stars in space! It's so unimaginably big that we've had to develop new numbers just to record it! and not only that, but everything we derive from observing space has not only determined the 13.7 billion years in the past all the way to the big bang, but has allowed us to predict the fate of the universe as far as 10^100 years into the future!

and thanks. (sorry, I get a bit excited about space.)

An astronomer or astrophysicist, if possible! I decided to do the combined physics and astronomy major, simply because it adds to the number of available options in case my main plan falls through.

I like it! It's bulky and Dragon Pokemon resist a lot of things. Plus, it's nice to have a Dragon that's not weak to Fairy! Although in exchange it's weak to Ground and Psychic. Dragalge were used a lot when X and Y first came out because they're great with Toxic Spikes, but they're rare to see now. In general it's probably not the best Pokemon but it has a solid spot on my team and I like it. I have no idea what I'd replace it with if I got rid of it. Tentacruel's great but it would totally overlap with my Forretress and I really don't need anything else that's weak to Electric, and I wouldn't be able to use Rain Dish that well with my current set-up. Since it's bulky, Dragalge is really good at doing the poison staller thing, plus it has Dragon Tail so it can force everything to jump on the Toxic Spikes it throws out. I also have Stealth Rock + Spikes on Forretress, so Dragon Tail is even more useful if I've done that.

Huh! I've seen a lot of Tornadus but they don't tend to live long with Ampharos in rain. I didn't even know that they had Prankster, that's great! And I hadn't heard anything about non-Zapdos birds, either! One-Hit-KO moves like Sheer Cold are banned on Showdown, though. (Which actually is okay for me since I'm terrible at sweeping (which is why I can't use Starmie)).

You should do more with your supybot! Also read Learn Python the Hard Way because it's the best. If I made the thread it was probably going to turn out to be just a bunch of links to those two things. But anyway I think a programming club would be fun because everyone could post their projects and talk about their experiences! Also if multiple people were going through Learn Python the Hard Way lessons then that could be pretty cool.

Swift Swim is actually legal with Drizzle right now! Drizzle got downgraded so it's not as much of an issue. Also Rain Dish is actually really good, but you need a completely different moveset to really take advantage of it. Being slow is only bad if you're trying to sweep with it.

I never really have problems with low PP competitively, but Hydro Pump's main problem is that it's only 80% accurate. And ohhh right Spikes can do that! That's cool, then. Breloom's Flying weakness is pretty bad; mine dies to like everything with a Flying move, so I have to switch it out, which is annoying when I've already spent some time Swords Dancing. I'm not sure if there's room for Stone Edge on mine, but Substitute helps. Protect is really great with Toxic! Poison Heal makes Gliscor almost ridiculously bulky already, though; I have a really hard time with them even though I use Water-types.

I should go now so I'll just mention Azumarill unless I notice something later. Get rid of Thick Fat! Azumarill really wants Huge Power. Also I'm not really sure what Azumarill does with Toxic; mine dies way too fast to ever use it, but I also run Belly Drum on it so that doesn't help. It seems from Smogon that you're supposed to use Toxic with Substitute. And it's choiced, so you'd have to make Azumarill come in just to use Toxic, which is pretty hard on a sweeper. Also you're missing out on Belly Drum and Aqua Jet so that's sad but they're not necessary for a useful Azumarill. (By the way Belly Drum + Aqua Jet is legal now! A lot of people think Azumarill should be banned from OU because of that.)

Oh also you have a lot of Life Orbs and a Choice Band. Are you sure you want to do that? You might have a problem with stall teams.

EDIT: Also you could try showing Ether's Bane your team, he likes sweeping more than I do so he might be more help with that part.

Espeon's excellent, but yeah, nothing much to do with rain. It's fine to have non-rain members on a rain team, but you get a lot less out of bothering to Rain Dance that way. I can't figure out how to use Starmie effectively! It dies easily and is mostly meant to be a sweeper. It has a lot of different move-types it can use, though. I haven't used Tentacruel but they seem pretty good! They're really mean to my team despite me having Poison and Steel Pokemon to deal with it. I'd use one if I didn't already have Dragalge.

I used to think that about legendaries, too! If you play a lot you start realizing why they're not banned, though; they're totally beatable. I still haven't used any but some of them are pretty interesting.

Not everyone's on IRC, though! I think people are reluctant for the same reason you rely on it; it's kind of weird getting used to rapid-fire conversation when you usually post on a forum. And right, the "programming" section is kind of useless if you don't need help! Or even if you do need help, there's no sign that there's much of anyone around to help you. I really want to have a programming club or something but I'm not sure who would participate! I almost made one a few months ago but then my browser crashed and I lost the post.

Yep, Drizzle! And my sun team relies on Drought. It's kind of nice not using weather too much because then I can just focus on fighting normally, but then get the boost if I want. Also, people get really high expectations about my team (assuming I'll send out Drizzle/Drought first, that I'll keep sending out Politoed or Charizard whenever I get a chance, that I have Rain Dance or Sunny Day on everything, and that I'll use certain movesets) and then they make a lot of mistakes based on that.

Just a few notes on your team: Water Shuriken is priority, but it doesn't seem that great on Greninja because no Technician or Skill Link. Instead, I think people usually use Hydro Pump or Surf. You're also missing out on Ice Beam and Dark Pulse with this set. You probably need those less because of Avalugg and Gengar, though. Also Spikes is less good in general than Stealth Rock! You can't do that on Greninja but it might be more useful to make room for Stealth Rock somewhere on your team than to have room for Spikes. Force Palm seems like it'd be annoying on Breloom since you'd usually want Spore instead of paralysis. Mach Punch is really good with Technician. Also, why Hidden Power Electric? You don't need it for Water types, and Stone Edge can give you Flying plus three entire more types at 100 BP (Bug, Flying, Ice). Or you could use that slot for Leech Seed or Swords Dance. For Gliscor, Protect + Substitute seems redundant, although Smogon has that on a suggested set. Roost or Taunt can be really good with one of those, or Smogon has some other attack ideas. Not sure what else off of the top of my head.

Here are my teams, too.


Heart's Song (Umbreon) @ Leftovers
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 Def
Calm Nature
- Confuse Ray
- Protect
- Wish
- Toxic

Glacier (Chandelure) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Confuse Ray
- Shadow Ball
- Flamethrower

Forest (Flygon) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Claw
- U-turn
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge

Sunshine (Charizard) @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Blaze
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Roost
- Flamethrower
- Dragon Pulse
- SolarBeam

Daylight (Espeon) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Baton Pass
- Substitute
- Dazzling Gleam

Flitterheart (Breloom) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 Def / 248 HP / 8 Atk
Impish Nature
- Leech Seed
- Substitute
- Swords Dance
- Drain Punch



Lucky (Politoed) @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature
- Encore
- Protect
- Toxic
- Scald

Apricot (Azumarill) @ Leftovers
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Aqua Jet
- Belly Drum
- Superpower
- Play Rough

Lightheart (Ampharos) @ Ampharosite
Ability: Static
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Thunder
- Confuse Ray
- Thunder Wave
- Volt Switch

Starshower (Vaporeon) @ Leftovers
Ability: Hydration
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 Def
Calm Nature
- Wish
- Toxic
- Protect
- Aqua Ring

Echo (Dragalge) @ Leftovers
Ability: Poison Point
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Dragon Tail
- Venoshock
- Protect
- Toxic Spikes

Bird (Forretress) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 Atk
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Rapid Spin
- Spikes
- Stealth Rock
- Gyro Ball

A thread would be great! People could post their usernames and maybe some potential times when they could be around. Also maybe we could share battle videos there.

Those are all pretty good Pokemon! I didn't know about Porygon2 but it looks really great defensively. Also huh, Zapdos can be more defensive than I thought. What do you do about entry hazards, though? I think they'd be bad for Zapdos and Azumarill in particular (depending on how you use them, anyway). What's your main team like?

People have requested everything get banned, so that doesn't necessarily mean much. They were apparently mostly waiting for Pokemon Bank to come out before banning things, so they haven't made too many decisions about the ban list yet. So far only the standard legendaries (like Arceus) are in, and recently Mega Kangaskhan and Gengar because they were just way too ridiculous. Also I was reading that things are banned if they're proven to be able to improve that team's chance of winning substantially in almost any situation, and also if they make it so that people have to carry one of a few very specific counters on their teams. I don't think Klefki really does that! It is really good, but lots of different things can fight it. I should try one sometime, too - it uses exactly the kind of playstyle I'm most interested in.

Maybe you should! I have no idea what most of the people on the forums are good at. Sometimes someone makes an art thread or something, but there's not that much space to talk about things like math, biology, music, programming... And really all the creativity sections get ignored a lot. Like, who even posts in the webmaster section? You and Butterfree? So I'm not sure how you'd get to know more about everyone else's interests.

And yes! My rain team is my main team. I currently use Vaporeon, mega Ampharos, Dragalge, Forretress, Politoed, and Azumarill! I don't take advantage of the rain too much and only Politoed can start rain, but it's still a rain team at heart. I posted it in Rayven's thread before I replaced Starmie with Forretress. I have a sun team, too! Which I posted in Murkrow's thread. It's now Charizard Y, Chandelure, Flygon, Umbreon, Espeon, and Breloom. I have some other teams too but they're all old and terrible, so I only use them to fight my little sister when she gets bored of my sun and rain teams.

Oh, great! Several people seem to be. We should organize some battles or something.

And yeah, that should be resolved now! People are getting the bank data ridiculously quickly; lots of people are interested in helping, I think. Also oh you do a rain team, too? What else is on it besides Zapdos?

Ferrothorn's mostly just a random example, but I kept losing to Ferrothorn at first because I didn't have any Fire-type moves on my team and I had a lot of Water Pokemon (super-effective Power Whip hurts). It's a Rain Dance team so using Fire isn't that great. I can beat them now! I usually deal with them by burning and/or confusing them; then they tend to go down pretty quickly. If I can, Azumarill can one-hit-KO them with Superpower (but again, have to be careful of Power Whip). They get a bunch of entry hazards in, but my Pokemon are pretty bulky, and I added Rapid Spin Forretress in recently, so I'm fine. Also the number of Ferrothorns around seems to be slowly decreasing in favour of shiny new Kalos things (mainly Klefki).

And yeah, exactly. If I don't know anything about a subject, I don't usually go around writing long advice posts about it. That would be silly. I don't usually go around shouting "I'm bad at [thing]!" either. Also, writing long posts (which is much easier for me because I tend to ramble) makes it seem like I know more even if I really don't. And I'm really interested in the things I talk about, and I think that comes across well with the way I talk; interested people often sound more knowledgeable than bored people.

So mostly I like lots of things and I'm loud about it. If you start talking to others more it turns out they know tons of things, too! But they don't really say anything.

I know more than the average person I bet, but I'm sure I have a lot to learn.

Well, you have time to figure it out. But don't feel discouraged because something you love is hard. I'd rather make a little money doing something I love than a lot doing something I hate.

Thank you! And okay! I wasn't sure.

Maybe you should do Pokemon Showdown, since you said you're curious. Making a competitive team always sounds really intimidating but it's really just a bunch of people going "oh no I keep losing really badly to Ferrothorns what should I do."

Edit: Also "You're so helpful all the time, wow. Are you like a genius in every field of everything ever? Or something?" thank you! And no, I just come across that way for some reason! I'm bad at a lot of things.

... i am now level 17. If I were an oshawott, now I'd be a dewott.

Meh. I'm not gonna mentally grow up anytime soon, that's for sure. I'm still gonna play pokemon, I know that. I am following my dreams a bit, and as far as plans go, well, I got accepted into Boston University to study astronomy and physics so i'll be going there. My immediate future is set, I guess. Assuming I can get all these essays and tests done for school.

PRETTY MUCH YEAH.

yup. i was pretty pro-gay-rights when i got into this place but it really expanded my knowledge on all of that. (and contributed to my really anticlimactic realization that i'm bi)

it does!

Don't have to pay $30 to evolve a Sentret, yo. *shrugs*

Want to catch it, yes. I save $30.

me too, man. me too.

everyone goes through that, i think; they first get onto the internet and piss everyone off

oh hahaha i pissed EVERYONE off back in the day.

i just suck at battling hahaha. also...yeah holy crap i was young.