Community POTW #83

[AOverlord]

looking at his stats I really don't see why he survives for you that much, there are way bulkier pokemon even in NU.
Rest is not the best recovery drain punch too (base 73 attack? it isn't gonna hit so hard to heal much).

Most psychic types (if not all) have better special bulk and offenses and some of them movepool too even in NU.
sure isomnia is nice but is it worth a team slot just for some pokemons who use sleep moves?

Not using my moveset. Hypno is the only Pokemon to learn Switcheroo and Disable. Have him hold a Choice Scarf and he'll have the enemy disabled by turn 2, and the foe dies from Struggle's recoil. Just maximize Defense and add a fair bit of EVs to HP and Sp. Defense so he lasts long enough. In this case, I would say Rest does work. It's a build where after turn 2 you just have to survive.

[Ilan]

Not using my moveset. Hypno is the only Pokemon to learn Switcheroo and Disable. Have him hold a Choice Scarf and he'll have the enemy disabled by turn 2, and the foe dies from Struggle's recoil. Just maximize Defense and add a fair bit of EVs to HP and Sp. Defense so he lasts long enough. In this case, I would say Rest does work. It's a build where after turn 2 you just have to survive.

Yeah no.. he will switch.. face it.. nothing stays to struggle to death.
And I checked disable lots of pokemon get disable and trick isn't that rare so I don't think hypno is unique in that.. or that it is a really good strategy it is a gimmick one which might work if it is the opponent last pokemon.. or if hypno had shadow tag.

[YourPermanentRecord631]

Yeah no.. he will switch.. face it.. nothing stays to struggle to death.
And I checked disable lots of pokemon get disable and trick isn't that rare so I don't think hypno is unique in that.. or that it is a really good strategy it is a gimmick one which might work if it is the opponent last pokemon.. or if hypno had shadow tag.

Shadow Tag would be nice, traps the opponent, and forces them to struggle while you set up, would get him out of NU probably.

[2406Blackbird]

Not using my moveset. Hypno is the only Pokemon to learn Switcheroo and Disable. Have him hold a Choice Scarf and he'll have the enemy disabled by turn 2, and the foe dies from Struggle's recoil. Just maximize Defense and add a fair bit of EVs to HP and Sp. Defense so he lasts long enough. In this case, I would say Rest does work. It's a build where after turn 2 you just have to survive.

Arbok can also have Disable and Switcheroo from HG/SS
Also, other pokemon can learn Trick, so there are also pokes who can use Trick and Disable.

[AOverlord]

I must have missed Arbok and Banette while looking over. But nevertheless they can't handle it with their Defenses(except possibly DW Banette w/ Cotton Guard, but even then you have to worry about special attacks for the first two turns). If I'm still missing anyone else, they didn't have the defenses that Hypno does.

It does become a Move Tutor move in BW2 again though and for more Pokemon than in HG/SS, and so in that I can say that it's more promising for others, but that hasn't been released here yet so I'm not really counting it in my searches.

[MetalCrow]

I must have missed Arbok and Banette while looking over. But nevertheless they can't handle it with their Defenses(except possibly DW Banette w/ Cotton Guard, but even then you have to worry about special attacks for the first two turns). If I'm still missing anyone else, they didn't have the defenses that Hypno does.

It does become a Move Tutor move in BW2 again though and for more Pokemon than in HG/SS, and so in that I can say that it's more promising for others, but that hasn't been released here yet so I'm not really counting it in my searches.

Outside of Hypno's tier, Gengar instantly pops into my mind for a Trick/Disable user...also, like you said, Trick is a BW2 move tutor attack, so there are lots of potential users

EDIT: Alakazam & Kadabra get it as well...Slowpoke & its evolutions too...also, the ralts evolution line..and dusclops..cacturne and cofagrigas too...shall i go on?

[Rayofquazar]

Ah Hypno... While you have FRIGHTENING pokedex entries, you are not even scary competitively... You have an extremely wide movepool, usable abilities, and some decent special defense. What completely ruins you is your horrible other stats. While you do have some useful boosting moves to get around your average stats, you requires a lot of turns to set yourself up for a sweep. What hinders you the most is that you have no way to get around your low speed rendering sweeping sets unappealing and rather unaffective. To benefit from you the most, is by playing to your strenghs which are a great movepool and decent special bulk. Calm mind sets are the way to go as it solidifies your special bulk while letting you attack with somewhat strong special attacks. Support is an option too as you have access to a lot of disruptive moves notably Hypnosis, Trick room, thunder wave, taunt, switcheroo, torment and disable but pulling of them successfully is somewhat a challenge for you because of your bad speed. Access to double screen and baton pass are also options to be considered especially the latter since you have a lot of boosting moves. Finally, If you really want to play competitively, you need a complete team to support you but you do have some small jobs to do inside of your team.

As far as abilities go, you have access to insomnia which allows you to switch in safely in front of sleep inducers like tangela or jynx, something other fellow pokemon can't really do. Forewarn is really useless because it doesn't help you inside of battle much and hypno really needs something of a surprise factor to do some damage to the opponent. It does let you scout for a possible set your opponent might be running. Inner focus prevents flinching and might prove to be with some of use against flinch abusers like dunsparce since hypno doesn't mind to be paralyzed that much!

Hypno have access to nightmare a move that make sleeping pokemon lose 1/4 of their max HP between turns and with Hypnosis available and the new sleep mechanics of 5th gen that can prove to be an efficient strategy against the opponents on a gimmick set!

Something like that might be usable?
A Hypno of nightmare!
Hypno@leftovers
Ability: Insomnia
EVS: 252 HP/4DEF/252 Sp DEF
Nature: +SpDEF/ -ATT or +DEF/-ATT
Moveset:
-Hypnosis
-Nightmare
-Dream Eater
-Shadow ball/ Signal beam/ Reflect

Ok... Lets be clear here! I really never used nightmare before and I don't know if the status is healed when the opponent switches out! But even here, that is not an issue as the new sleep mechanics will make you opponent think twice before switching out his sleeping pokemon. When you put a pokemon to sleep with hypnosis, activate nightmare's status and proceed to firing Dream eaters and watch the opponent's pokemon HP goes down as the damage racks up and your own HP goes up as you suck the life out of them! Shadow ball and signal beam are for dark type pokemon that are immune to hypnosis and dream eater and also can save you from other insomnia or vital spirited pokemon. Reflect is also easy to set up on a sleeping pokemon to buff up your weaker physical bulk turning hypno into a great wall!
Note: If hypnosis misses on a physical sweeper, you are as good as dead but you can survive a special hit and try your luck again recovering that loss of HP with Dream eater!
This is at best a gimmick set that I thought of and I don't even know if it works or not... but it can grant you a KO on something that is bothering you on your opponent's team with some luck!

[Ilan]

Ah Hypno... While you have FRIGHTENING pokedex entries, you are not even scary competitively... You have an extremely wide movepool, usable abilities, and some decent special defense. What completely ruins you is your horrible other stats. While you do have some useful boosting moves to get around your average stats, you requires a lot of turns to set yourself up for a sweep. What hinders you the most is that you have no way to get around your low speed rendering sweeping sets unappealing and rather unaffective. To benefit from you the most, is by playing to your strenghs which are a great movepool and decent special bulk. Calm mind sets are the way to go as it solidifies your special bulk while letting you attack with somewhat strong special attacks. Support is an option too as you have access to a lot of disruptive moves notably Hypnosis, Trick room, thunder wave, taunt, switcheroo, torment and disable but pulling of them successfully is somewhat a challenge for you because of your bad speed. Access to double screen and baton pass are also options to be considered especially the latter since you have a lot of boosting moves. Finally, If you really want to play competitively, you need a complete team to support you but you do have some small jobs to do inside of your team.

As far as abilities go, you have access to insomnia which allows you to switch in safely in front of sleep inducers like tangela or jynx, something other fellow pokemon can't really do. Forewarn is really useless because it doesn't help you inside of battle much and hypno really needs something of a surprise factor to do some damage to the opponent. It does let you scout for a possible set your opponent might be running. Inner focus prevents flinching and might prove to be with some of use against flinch abusers like dunsparce since hypno doesn't mind to be paralyzed that much!

Hypno have access to nightmare a move that make sleeping pokemon lose 1/4 of their max HP between turns and with Hypnosis available and the new sleep mechanics of 5th gen that can prove to be an efficient strategy against the opponents on a gimmick set!

Something like that might be usable?
A Hypno of nightmare!
Hypno@leftovers
Ability: Insomnia
EVS: 252 HP/4DEF/252 Sp DEF
Nature: +SpDEF/ -ATT or +DEF/-ATT
Moveset:
-Hypnosis
-Nightmare
-Dream Eater
-Shadow ball/ Signal beam/ Reflect

Ok... Lets be clear here! I really never used nightmare before and I don't know if the status is healed when the opponent switches out! But even here, that is not an issue as the new sleep mechanics will make you opponent think twice before switching out his sleeping pokemon. When you put a pokemon to sleep with hypnosis, activate nightmare's status and proceed to firing Dream eaters and watch the opponent's pokemon HP goes down as the damage racks up and your own HP goes up as you suck the life out of them! Shadow ball and signal beam are for dark type pokemon that are immune to hypnosis and dream eater and also can save you from other insomnia or vital spirited pokemon. Reflect is also easy to set up on a sleeping pokemon to buff up your weaker physical bulk turning hypno into a great wall!
Note: If hypnosis misses on a physical sweeper, you are as good as dead but you can survive a special hit and try your luck again recovering that loss of HP with Dream eater!
This is at best a gimmick set that I thought of and I don't even know if it works or not... but it can grant you a KO on something that is bothering you on your opponent's team with some luck!

Most people will switch.= useless set. Last time I checked dark types aren't immune to psychic status moves like trick or hypnosis.

[OceanicLanturn]

Wonder if this set can be usable...

Hypnosis abuser
- Hypnosis
- Barrier/ Light screen
- Dream eater/ psychic/ psyshock
- nasty Plot
Held item: leftovers
Nature should be a neutral one
252 speed/252 defense/4 special attack
Put the foe to sleep with Hypnosis. barrier is a great skill that increases Your measly 70 defense. light screen can be used if you want more sp. def. dream eater is like free recovery while doing awesome damage with nasty plot. psychic can be used in place so can psyshock I think speed is important to put the opponent to sleep.

hyper hippie hypno
- barrier
- nasty plot
- drain punch/fire punch/ shadow ball
- psychic/ psyshock
252 sp. Atk/ 252 defense/ 4 speed
Held item: leftovers
Nature should be a Nuetral one as well
Your pure attacking set. barrier increases your defense.nasty plot for better sp. Atk. drain punch, fire punch or shadow ball can ruin it's weakness types. psychic is your good old sweeping stuff, but psyshock does physical damage

Other options:
Focus Blast hits super hard, but doesn't have the best accuracy.
Switcheroo can really screw others up
Dark pulse can be used instead of shadow ball, but it's pointless due to hypno being sort of slow
Zen headbutt is great, but same drawback as dark pulse
Reflect can be used for your teammates, but barrier adds more def.
Brick break can be used to break duo barriers
Trick room can be used for slow hypno

That's what I think. Please give me some feedbacks, thanks

[YourPermanentRecord631]

Counters-Honchkrow is a big one, immune to sleep, and stabs and can kill it with Night Slash, but watch out for Ice/Thunder Punch. Murkrow also works with Priority Taunt and where it down with Night Shade, but again watch out for Ice/ThunderPunch. Cinncino can also hurt as well with STAB Banded Tail Slap. Prankster Liepard gets a mention with Prankster and can proceed to hurt it with STABs.

[Rayofquazar]

Most people will switch.= useless set. Last time I checked dark types aren't immune to psychic status moves like trick or hypnosis.

Well thanks for the feedback... LOL! I said that I don't even know if it works or not but maybe it won't be that useless, just gimmicky! Sleep mechanics changed in 5th gen and not many opponents will predict having nightmare on a hypno... So It's not that impossible to inflict the status. Even if the opponent switches, having a sleeping pokemon in one's party is not a good thing!

It might turn out to be a horrible set either, but I just thought of posting something new!

[AOverlord]

Again, I was not taking B2/W2 Move Tutor into account as it is not available where I am yet. In terms of the firsts Black and White, Hypno is the best option(and he works well if you know what you're doing). In Black 2 and White 2, I'll gladly admit there will be better options, Slowbro/Slowking look particularly promising, and Cofagrigus as well. Gengar and other sweepers are not suitable for this build, as they can't generally take a hit.

[philzone]

What about using hypnosis to force a switch and use it to set up? Sub punch set works here.

Hyp hop
Substitute
Hypnosis
Focus punch
Zen headbutt/psycho cut
Adamant/brave
Evs 252 hp 252 att 4 def
Leftovers/wide lens

Lets see. Use this late game.(2/3 opponents left). Hypnosis should make the foe switch, so you then put up a substitute. Next turn, if foe isn't ghost type, it can have delt a strong focus punch while the foe tries to take down the substitute. The last move makes sure that ghost types don't wall you completely. Leftovers for recovery or wide lens to improve hypnosis' shaky accuracy.

[Star Champion AJ]

What about using hypnosis to force a switch and use it to set up? Sub punch set works here.

Hyp hop
Substitute
Hypnosis
Focus punch
Zen headbutt/psycho cut
Adamant/brave
Evs 252 hp 252 att 4 def
Leftovers/wide lens

Lets see. Use this late game.(2/3 opponents left). Hypnosis should make the foe switch, so you then put up a substitute. Next turn, if foe isn't ghost type, it can have delt a strong focus punch while the foe tries to take down the substitute. The last move makes sure that ghost types don't wall you completely. Leftovers for recovery or wide lens to improve hypnosis' shaky accuracy.

Sableye and Spiritomb say hello to your "nice" set.

[YourPermanentRecord631]

Sableye and Spiritomb say hello to your "nice" set.

He means late game, and Sableye is banned from NU so late game isn't bad.

[lucario572]

Hypno isn`t a good PKMN but I made one that I liked:

"The Hypnotist"
-Hypnosis
-Dream Eater
-Barrier
-Focus Blast(Better Choice)/Hidden Power(Bug)/Signal Beam(For BW 2 move tutor)/Shadow Ball (It sucks with Shadow Ball)
Nature: Modest Ability: Insomnia
Item: Wide Lens [for the awful Accuracy]
EVs: 58 Def/ 200 SP. Atk/ 152 SP. Def/ 100 Speed

The Strategy is simple, first of all we must put the enemy to sleep with hypnosis, to sharply raises its Defense stat to stay alive, or you can choose to use dream eater to heal your health and when you want to kill the opponent you can Focus Blast, Signal Beam(BW 2) or Shadow Ball. It`s always a good choice the raise his bad defense to survive because he didn`t have a good defense and his Sp. Def you don`t need to be worried about, and if you are sure that the opponent is sleeping you can use Dream Eater to do some damage and heal you the base power its great 100, and the other attacks you can it`s much better using Focus Blast Because of the base power being 120 but the accuracy doesn`t help just like hypnosis this is why I`m putting Wide lens, but there are other options to you to make, HP(Bug), Signal Beam (BW 2) and Shadow Ball.

[MetalCrow]

I think a good set would be a calm mind set using shadow ball, psychic, and focus blast as the attacks...those 3 attacks have awesome coverage in the nu tier...of course, like other hypno sets, it functions better after physical opponents have been eliminated...with that much team support, hypno should be able to function fairly well...o yea, don't forget to wipe out walls while you're at it...they can be difficult to beat since hypno has no good way to heal status and damage in a stall war

[Star Champion AJ]

He means late game, and Sableye is banned from NU so late game isn't bad.

About that, I don't know which Pokémon belong to which tier and what's banned (or not) so I said the first thing that came to my mind about the set.

[philzone]

About that, I don't know which Pokémon belong to which tier and what's banned (or not) so I said the first thing that came to my mind about the set.

I got directed here when I asked about tiers:
http://www.smogon.com/bw/pokemon/.

[Star Champion AJ]

I got directed here when I asked about tiers:
http://www.smogon.com/bw/pokemon/.

Thanks for the info!