TL;DR
We live in a Blissey world, Snorlax isn’t very useful. Snorlax has a lot of attacks, so take Blissey and/or Corviknight to tank. Other steel types are good if you can avoid Earthquake and Superpower. Gmax Machamp is the attacker of choice.
Gigantamax Snorlax returns on Sunday December 14th. Snorlax has a normal type Gmax attack so it has no use as an attacker despite the Gmax attack power. As a tank Snorlax is a bulky normal type with a 0.5s fast move, however Blissey just does the job better. Snorlax battles still reward a ton of stardust though!
Attackers
Snorlax only has one weakness, so bring your best fighting type. Typically, Gmax Machamp, but Dmax Urshifu, Gallade, or Machamp can cover if you don’t have the Gmax.
Tanks
Snorlax has a huge move pool with seven total moves. Three of those moves are normal type and the other four are different types, leaving a lot of variety our tanks need to cover. Hyper Beam and Skull Bash both hit hard thanks to STAB while Body Slam is a fairly weak move and just about anything can tolerate Body Slam. Steel and Ghost types resist normal moves, but enter Earthquake and Superpower. Steel types usually take super effective damage from Earthquake and Superpower, putting us in a difficulty spot. If you’re looking to never reroll the boss move and take whatever moves Snorlax has, the best option is Blissey due to the variety of moves Snorlax has. Just run double Blissey. If you don’t have two Blissey then Corviknight manages to resist the normal moves while taking neutral damage from Superpower and still resisting Earthquake thanks to the Flying type. Metagross and Zacian take neutral from Superpower, but still fold to Earthquake. Our usual hero, Zamazenta, is a dice roll. An absolute all-star against everything except Earthquake and Superpower.
If you like to use Max Guard Blissey doesn’t hold a Max Guard well with it’s low defense stat. The steel types work much better for using Max Guard.
If you’re trying to do a low trainer count win and are willing to reroll moves you can try to just reroll any Superpower and Earthquake attempts while running Zamazenta as the tank of choice. Gengar seems like a secret option against Normal type moves and Superpower, which is triple resists. Ultimately Gengar just doesn’t preform better than the top steel types even when Snorlax has ideal moves for Gengar.
New Simulation Methodology
What are these triple digit numbers?! Where is MCF? First a stated list of goals. What am I trying to accomplish with these analyses?
- Easily show a hierarchy of what counters preform the best on average.
- Allow trainers to determine from the numbers if they can, on average, win a Max Battle.
- Fairly evaluate each pokemon across multiple metrics.
So far, I’ve only really felt like number one was being accomplished. I often get comments asking if a group of friends using pokemon X, Y, and Z at some level can win. There’s also a lot of discussion about the use of Max Guard and bulky pokemon with 1.0s fast moves as a singleton on teams. These are all totally valid points.
So, the simulations need to be changed up to address these things. Mechanically they run the same, however each simulation is now running each trainer with two copies of their tank. Due to the enraged/desperate timer in the past saying MCF of tank A + MCF of tank B wasn’t very accurate because tank B is going to hit the enraged damage multiplier and faint much quicker than the MCF suggested.
Additionally in the future I plan to start simulating teams with multiple species of pokemon. How does a team of six Blissey and one trainer running double Lugia compare to the full eight Blissey? Unfortunately, I didn’t quite get that finished in time for Snorlax, but it is coming!
In order to fairly compare a Lugia+Blissey team to a full Blissey team we can’t just count the number of Max Cycles. Lugia, being insanely bulky, and powered by cheering teammates might go a couple extra Max Cycles, but that isn’t a fairy comparison because you’re only getting one player making Max Attacks. Enter TMM, or Total Max Moves. Everything is now measured in Max Moves. The attackers table shows how many Max Attacks that species needs to win. Tanks show how many Max Attacks the TOTAL TEAM makes across the simulation. On average, across all the simulations, a team of 4 trainers each running 2 Blissey against a Skull Bash + Hyper Beam Snorlax shows 124.3 TMM. Those eight Blisseys averaged 124 max moves across the entire battle before they fainted. No Max Spirit or Max Guard is applied, we’re just counting how many Max Moves could have been used, so you can consider them Max Attacks.
Finally, we can take the Max Moves your attack needs and compare it to the TMM the tanks have and see if the battle in winnable, on average. Level 50 Gmax Machamp with Max Move level 3 needs 157.2 Max Attacks to win. Now compare that to say eight Blissey against Earthquake + Hyperbeam, which shows 170.5 TMM. This means the simulations suggest that eight level 40 Blissey and 4 Gmax lvl 4, max move 3, Machamps will easily win on average.
I’m also including columns for 10% and 20% damage bonuses on the attackers. This should hopefully help players gauge if they can win with Best Friends, Powerspot Helpers, and/or Weather Boost.
I keep saying on average. Its entirely possible Snorlax just throws a hard-hitting spread move six times in a row against all odds and you just get crushed. There’s always the luck element, but that’s why hundreds of sims are run against each move set to get an average of what is move likely to happen.
Looking to the Future
There are still many things I want to add in the future. First is integrating 0.1s fast move tanks into mixed species teams (Thanks Lugia -.- ).
Another metric that is missing is the fast move damage from the tanks over the course of the battle. It is possibly for the fast moves to account for over 10% of the total damage in the battle. That is a significant amount of damage I’m not accounting for when looking at just the Max Attacks to faint the boss. In the cases where Blissey is the best tanks but say Zamazenta isn’t far behind, does Zamazenta seem to be worth it due to the better fast move damage?
Lastly the most difficult hurdle is Max Guard. The effect of Max Guard on boss move usage hasn’t been thoroughly researched. I can’t simulate if accurately because no one really knows how much the supposed “taunt” effect changes boss move usage. Whenever the effect of Max Guard is fully understood it becomes possible to start simulating how battles change once a player is using Max Guard. Shuckle anyone? Shuckle, Lugia, or any high defense pokemon as a singleton using Max Guard might actually be a top strategy if the change in move selection means the whole team survives significantly longer. It’s likely the most complex question in Max Battles. It’s on my mind, but likely a very long time from being implemented.
If there is ANYTHING else that you’d like to see added or changed in these analyses please leave a comment. Or if you’re seeking clarification on how the simulations are run or what any of the numbers mean. I’m open to suggestions, insight, and items I might have overlooked. And if you read these far, congrats! It was a long one, I know.
by TrueNourishment
19 Comments
Long, but worth it!!! Thanks for everything you do to help so many of us prepare for these! This is such a valuable resource you provide to us. 🙏
BlisseyBlissey’Champ for this one!
We can tell that a lot of thought and consideration of feedback went into this new methodology and I think it’s a great idea. Being able to compare MMtW versus TMM gives a much better idea of your chances of winning.
Thanks again 👍
Thank you!
So a team of all lvl 45 g machsmp plus double blissey should win in most instances if you have 15% dmg bonus at least?
Wow, I had forgotten how many coverage moves Snorlax has. Makes choosing your tank quite the gamble unless you re-roll
This genuinely gets better every single time, thanks!
While we’re on the subject of adding needless complexity: I started doing max battles with my wife and kids, but over the last few months I’ve developed a reputation as someone who can help get underpowered teams across the finish line, so now we’re often going out with my kids’ friends, too. My team is all Level 40+ with all relevant max moves at 3, but everyone else is maybe rocking level 30-40 counters with max moves at level 1-2, and a few are full-on Wooloo brigades.
The key, of course, is using Max Guard to draw aggro and keep everyone in the fight. I’ve done 8-round battles where no one got hit but me. But we’re often lacking on damage still, so I’ve started unlocking Max Guard on my attackers so I can switch to them, attack twice, then shield to still draw aggro in the next small phase.
If you’re simulating, anything that is taking fewer than 1.5 shields worth of damage per cycle could essentially alternate max phases between the attacker and the shielder while keeping aggro the entire time.
(That’s one of the reasons Lugia is potentially a big deal— against ground and fighting moves you could potentially even do two Max phases with your attacker for every one with your shielder.)
This is amazing. Thank you so much!
I feel like I get the gist of it all, but what is MCF?
Holy even your tldr needs a tldr
These analyses are phenomenal, and you are awesome. Thank you. :^ )
Alright so.. how many people needed for this? Can we beat it with just 4? Probably not. 8-9?
“0.1s fast move tanks into mixed species teams (Thanks Lugia -.- )”
You probably mean 1.0s but 0.1s would be dope.
For real, though, I wish they give Dragon Breath to Lugia like Water Gun for Suicune.
I’m gonna need a TL;DR – for us filthy casuals
I think Zamazenta could be the 2nd tank either way, just because the shield is free. The 4 players bring it one after the other, so that there’s always 3 Blissey and 1 Zamazenta on field. It gets sacrificed, not healed. Depends on a lot, like how much this free shield even does, but feels like worth doing
Well, here goes another round of trying for a 4-man GMax with the family 🙂
We unfortunately have no GMax mons, so DMax will have to do.
We managed to 4-man Lugia with teams consisting of Blissey (either 2 x Blissey or 1 x Blissey + 1 x Zamazenta) + DMax Machamp, all at level 40 with DMax attack at 3. We got it down by the fourth max attack phase.
If needs be we could try a mushroom. Somehow we always forgot those exist.
We’ll see.
Either way, as always thanks a lot for the info and all the hard work 🙂
Edited to add:
in your table above, Dynamax Machamp is at ‘max moves to win’ 236 without bonus / boost.
So, if we have 3 attacks per phase, it’s 236 / 3 = 79
We have 4 players, so 79 / 4 = 20
So, if we don’t heal / shield, but just attack in the Dynamax phase, it should take 20 Max phases for a level 40 Dynamax Machamp with 3 attack, for our team of 4.
With a mushroom per player this is halved, right? To ten phases?
Add to that friendship boost, weather boost and power spot boost…
ih damn. im too slow to understand the new metrics. i kinda miss the cicles needed if there is a group of 4, 8 and 12 . is there a formula i can apply to determine this to the new data?
edit: i’ve read some comments and im trying to do the math. but. lets say we go a group of 4 trainers. blissey tanking (2) at level 40 + and 4 gmax machamps at 40+. we will need over 15 cicles to win, is that right? i dont believe all 8 blisseys may last that long?
also, IIRC, first time around, gengar resisted better than blissey most of the battles. but looking at the sheet, it doesnt seem to outperform blissey in any possible scenario?
I’m hoping some changes in max meter charge phase to give some love for types with 1,0s fast moves (there is not available faster move). I like that this could open some doors to Pokemons which doesn’t necessarily have other use in the game to widen the meta.
Mixed 1,0s with 0,5s fast moves at same level is acceptable since there is 2 flavours of battling: low manned battles where you have to squeeze all benefits out; mass battles with enough of players to get relatively easy win (with expectation to have at least decent level team and playing skills). Slowdown is not necessarily that bad but in the end max battles biggest thing is time.
Battles which duration extends to boss enrage phase should not be feared, since we already have certain strategies to keep the battle going. This also opens a door to actually use more of max moves which makes battles more interesting. Kind of my fault that challenged in this case some people and now we have some tools to grind wins, even when best possible team have to extend its gameplay to win 😅
These posts help a lot of people to prepare for the battles, so keep up good work. Team selection is one thing, but my experience says that well prepared battle plan will carry even further.
I’ll just skip this event, and keep accumulating reward particles past the storage limit until we get to a max battle day with an actually useful Pokemon.
I think giving bug bite to shuckle would shake up the meta in an interesting way, by giving my thought to party team building (on the 12 mon level instead of 3). He’s got so little HP that just abput anyone can heal him, you wouldn’t need everyone to pack 2 blisseys anymore. Heck maybe just one for the whole team. Max guard 3 on a high level shuckle should be able to absorb quite a lot of attacks.
> If you like to use Max Guard Blissey doesn’t hold a Max Guard well with it’s low defense stat. The steel types work much better for using Max Guard.
Can you explain this like I’m 5?