Which is your signature Pokemon to use in a battle?

Personally, I don't have a signature Pokémon. I usually just use whatever fits the bill at the moment. People say that is what makes me so dangerous to battle, you never know what is going to show up at the table. Though, I see absolutely nothing wrong with having a dependable signature Pokémon by your side. One of my friends has two signature Pokémon (Dragonite & Volcarona) and he wrecks house with them just fine. I actually dread battling him because I know one of these two (sometimes both) is going to be lurking in his team some where.

 

Now, I know what you are thinking.... Oh duh, it's Infernape, GGWP. Actually, no. While Infernape is my absolute favorite Pokémon, and it has a ton of competitive value because of it's multiple options, I like gimmicks and antics, and NOTHING compares to this little shit.

[3D='cottonee']
Lvl: 1
IV's Nature and EV's don't matter
Item: Focus Sash
Ability: Prankster
Moves
- Leech Seed
- Substitute
- Toxic
- Encore

I love using this stupid little cotton ball. Bring it into any tier, Ubers, OU, UU, who cares. It will make your opponent's life miserable. Oh use Darkrai and try to Dark Void first turn? Substitute, Encore next turn because you screwed up. Setting up will not phase this guy, he will Encore you 'till your days are numbered. If you manage to hit this guy, OH HERE COMES THE LEECH SEED. This works because Leech Seed does percent damage depending on level, since usually all Pokémon will be Level 100 or 50, Cottonee will get all of it's health back from Leech Seed if it gets hit. To further the stall, we got Toxic whic every Pokémon and their grandmothers can learn. Combine that with Prankster and you spell GGWP.

Because you may use this diabolical little shit, here are some things you need to watch out for.

Entry Hazards: Stealth Rocks, Spikes and Toxic Spikes. If Cottonee takes damage upon entering, Focus Sash will not work. If you can use Leech Seed (Only work if you have the option to select the move) and your opponent stupidly sets up, you can use Encore and Cottonee triumphs again! Except if they use...

Priority Moves: Bullet Punch, Talonflame Flying Moves, Quick Attack, Fake Out, Extremespeed, Mach Punch
Priority moves always go before Prankster and if Cottonee is brought to it's Focus Sash on the turn it is sent out by a priority move, it's useless. They can use that move again next turn and screw you over. Sucker Punch doesn't matter because Cottonee has no attacking moves.

Status Conditions: Burn, Freeze, Poison, Sleep.
Paralyze isn't that bad if you have a sub up and you haven't lost your sash yet. You just have to get lucky, same with confusion. However the others are a problem, Burn and Poison do residual damage and breaks Cottonee's sash, Freeze and Sleep immobilize Cottonee and it can't do anything.

Damaging Weather: Hail and Sandstorm
Again residual damage does not bid Cottonee well.

If you wish to view The Beast destroy an Ubers team, click here. Yes this is me, yes this is my Youtube channel, No this is not advertising (maybe)

 

I can vouch that this thing is an annoying little sh*t. Counterplay against sub leech seed essentially involves making aggresive doubles, finding a way so that it doesn't have both a sub and seeds on you and going from there while entry hazards and the leech seed damage slowly whittles away at your team. I personally much prefer a fully levelled Whimsicott since it doesn't need to worry about preserving a focus sash, is actually fast so will outspeed the majority of the priority moves you listed (excluding Brave Bird from Jolly Talonflame, Quick Attack from some of the mons you might see it on like Mega Lopunny, Fake Out and E Speed), assuming that you run max speed which you should. You also don't break your sash when you go for a sub (because you don't use a sash), and the fact that focus sash only has one use affects its longevity. Also the fact that Cottonee's sub can be broken by anything really doesn't help it. It makes it reliant on leech seed recovery after going for a sub to bring it back to full health so that Focus Sash can activate, meaning that players can take advantage of this by click U-turn/Volt switch while you are behind a sub and clicking leech seed. As you will go first due to Prankster, they will eat the leech seed before clicking volt switch, leaving you without a sub with no seeds up and no longer at full health thanks to sub meaning your sash won't activate. Whimsicott wouldn't have this issue, as volt/turn wouldn't break your sub and you'd be free to leech seed the next turn if necessary. Also leftovers recovery along with leech seed is diabolical, making you recover enough to sub up again after roughly 2 turns.

The issues a set like this face are obviously Infilitrator/Hyper Voice users, but also Pressure stalling (only have 16 leech seeds, which is 8 with pressure :/), Grass types which are immune to leech seed (and considering that two of the more common grass types being Amoonguss and Venusaur are immune to Toxic doesn't help), Magic Bounce users which completely cock block it, Magic Guard users which don't really give a f*ck about it, and again faster priority. Whimsicott doesn't really care about sand/hail damage or hazards, but those would be an issue for cottonee.

So yeah if you're going to use a set like this you would want to cover these things with the rest of your team. Overall I think Whimsicott kind of just trumps Cottonee in pretty much every way, though Cottonee is way more stylish Oh, and make sure you double leech seed on obvious switches (e.g when you lock them in to a move) to keep up the pressure, though don't do this too much since they may PP stall you out.

 

@[member="Reborn"], I actualy forgot to mention Grass and Infiltraitor Pokémon as well as sound based moves XD. Cottonee is more or less a disruption to the team, other people will be caught off guard after hordes off Aegislashs and Groudons that no one expects the cotton ball of death. Even if Cottonee dies, if you look at the battle I posted, you could see how low some of the Pokémon were and I just used Cottonee for that. My sweepers could easily come in and clean house. If Cottonee claims a victim, great! If the toxic seeding becomes violent and Pokémon take residual damage from it, awesome! Cottonee is a cute but deadly distraction.

 

I don't really have a signature Mon. All of my teams so far (which are only two (Omega Ruby; planned one for Sun) as I just started getting into battling in Gen VI) have just revolved around what Pokémon are native to the region for the most part.

My main team in OR is Blaziken, Gardevoir, Azumarill, Noivern, Shiftry, Aggron. All of them are available before obtaining the National Pokédex except Noivern, who needs to be traded anyway.

And then my planned team for Sun has a similar setup; five Pokémon from that generation and one that isn't, with the exception of the similarities being Alolan Muk able to be caught in the same game and it patially being a new Pokémon as well.

 

I'm surprised I never replied to this thread.. Here it goes anyway!

Ever since the advent of Black/White coming out, I've always tried finding a way to use Liepard. Liepard seems to be my favorite Pokémon to use because of Prankster, its speed, and its access to priority moves. VGC greatly appreciates all of those, and it's easy to see why, as @[member="Reborn"] can probably attest to.

I don't have a Pokémon I've stuck with every year, but every year there's a Pokémon I can't avoid using. (Except maybe Cresselia--she's the queen of VGC without a doubt).