#mu registeel

[crystalelemental]

Champion Stadium clears, testing out the new sync pairs, and trying to stay mostly within the F2P lines. There are some exceptions, though...

Vs. Karen BP Barry is really good. Like, this kit rules. Him and base Erika form a really strong partnership to an EX Striker like Lusamine, who may need a bit of crit, and a lot of special attack. Barry supplies it all, with solid defensive profile and Synthesis to sustain. I am exceptionally impressed with his work.

Vs. Will Defensive supports are nice for pairs that are offensively self-sufficient, or for longer modes like Gauntlet. In CS, I feel like defensive supports largely exist for stall. You'll be happy to know, Olivia does this pretty well. X Regen All is nice gradual recovery for the sides to shrug off sync, while her own Protect and First Aid 4 can keep her in place longer than you might expect. I'm not blown away by her performance, but she accomplishes a goal and serves nicely within Stall Meta.

Vs. Koga And now we reach mistakes. A major problem with the BP Master Pairs this time around is that the buffing kit is very poor. Registeel, in particular, kinda sucks. Defensive boosts are decent, but only self-applied, which means sides will obliterate your allies with AoE. Cutting healing in half is a generally smart strat in CS, but Registeel works entirely with recovery so it's hard to facilitate. Its speed boosting, a major draw of its kit, is slow to start up given your two TMs to max defenses, then probably throwing out Potions as needed, resulting in few actual attacks occurring. It's also just not that sturdy. Even with +6, it didn't take much for Koga to overwhelm it. This was carried by Kukui's flinch and Candice's sync bombs, which also needed to remember to reset Hail for Sure Crit or she'd die.

Vs. Bruno Believe it or not, I actually don't respect SEUN on its own. Even aside from how much content these days focuses on off-type, a major issue is that it tends to come with limited offensive support. Dana is a pretty good example of the issue. When looking to the lower tiers that most want this, they can't buff, and she can't help them. The closest we came was Gardenia, who had two problems. One is setup. Without 3/5 Dana, we just didn't have the ability to save a turn off Dire Hit+, or the ability to boost special attack enough for Gardenia to win. The other is bulk. Dana can buff both defenses eventually, but skews special, so a physical stage like this is very difficult for her. I had to settle on SS Erika as the only option with really good self-setup, and to be honest, Erika could've done with this other pairs. This is decisively not Dana's best showing, and I'm feeling very strongly that this is a pair that lives and dies by 3/5 access when considering anything but the elite in self-setup.

Vs. Lance Look, I needed to test out BP Valerie, I adore her. Off-typing Lance it is. This is a particularly scary fight, because of the high BP moves that Lance throws around constantly. Even H!Caitlin has trouble with it. That said, permanent field condition is a choice this time, so welcome to easy street. Caitlin's shields last through Lance's sync, and Colress can debuff accuracy to really cheese round 2. I will say, with concentrated DPS and a flinch off Iron Head, it...legitimately might have been possible to pre-sync clear center. Valerie's pretty impressive on DPS. Sync isn't fantastic without on-type, but we knew that already. Overall though, very satisfied with her performance.

BP Falkner Falkner was the odd man out here. I wasn't exactly confident in his off-type sync potential, so I dropped it. That said, in more closely assessing how he could've been used, I did recognize two things. One is, his speed debuffing is great for Cakewalk. Second, his attack debuffing with Defog would've made something like Bruno much, much easier to handle, as he removes all the shields and offsets parameters. Third, Confuse. This one was especially salient, because I remembered Tate exists, and has hilarious DPS numbers on-type when facilitated, with Cakewalk as the sync. Tate might be Falkner's best F2P partner, facilitating effectively every condition for DPS and Sync that Tate needs. Now if only we had a Psychic Terrain support.

[crystalelemental]

Sync grid whatever, BP Clowns.

Barry did okay for himself. The boosting move is solid, and Synthesis MPR is very nice. It's the Team Pinpoint Entry 2 that gets me. It's a small thing, but Marlon makes it work. Barry even has the Stalwart/Unbending combo. With the ability to boost defenses on TM while also packing special attack boosting and a heal move, this is...better Marlon, really. Like, objectively better as a choice in almost all compositions.

I don't really respect Olivia. Getting 20% damage reduction across the board against moves is cute, but insufficient to offset just having a goddamned Potion. Even Synchro Healing would've been something, as it would lend itself to stall strats. Instead, First Aid 4, and limited damage reduction. Hooray?

Falkner is...fine. I actually think he's Lodge Serena's best friend in 3v3 with Overwhelm/Trip Up. He sets up her sync things much easier. Gobsmack is cute, Ripple Effect is too limited to work often enough, and his sync only gets a 50% multiplier despite the Tech designation and poor DPS. He's really more of a utility pair thanks to Defog, I think. I'll take it. I love Defog.

Valerie. Sweet, wonderful Valerie, who has finally gotten her due. Mawile...is kinda good actually. Respectable attack stat, Iron Head sets up nicely for High Score Fairy, Aggravation means she always has her flinch bot shenanigans at minimum. I do think sync multipliers could've been better placed. I'm not surprised she got hit by Double Down 5, just disappointed. Brawn Sync 3 is something, but it's a little out of the way for such a weak multiplier.

Dana. You sure aren't Morgan. I actually like her base kit pretty well already. Which is good, because the grid makes me depressed. Even if you get her to 3/5, which is already a damning task, you have to deal with losing Hype Up, a critical tool for many Ice types she could support; Team Sharp Entry, which is super valuable broadly; or SEUN MPR, which is like her entire niche. Any of these choices still means not having Synchro Healing, which is also sad. I still think she's good, SEUN application repeatedly is never exactly bad. But no EX? Really?

Speaking of, MU over here getting Registeel, then demanding sync to refill the MPR of healing moves. Why do you not just have normal MPRs on these things, clown? I guess it makes the grid nice and compact, but you show me a situation where it's optimal to give a non-EX Support first sync late into a match just for a Potion MPR. And the rest of the grid is just ass.

[crystalelemental]

Then there’s the Trap condition to build a match around, and I promise I’m not going to go “Anni Raihan Extreme Battle Event” on anything, that would be stupid.

Trap Weak (Registeel) Trap, like Toxic and Burn, has some good damage potential.  Usually when Trap is dealing significant damage, it’s against something with like...Lessen 5.  Anything more than that tends to really hinder the overall damage amounts you’re dealing, but it’s still respectable to include with Toxic damage at any Lessen Level.

My selection was Registeel.  I wanted a big dumb thing that felt like it would be easy to trap and apply pressure to until it broke.  “And you chose something made of metal?”  Shut up.  The focus of Registeel is self-buffing.  Registeel has two moves that it uses each round in phase 1: Iron Defense and Amnesia.  Iron Defense carries Berserker 2, and Amnesia carries Ramp Up 2.  The first phase is this setup, where it will alternate like Cresselia, two attacks then two buffs into sync.  Your goal is to take it down quickly before it can buff, because yes, it will have Impervious, so stat debuffs won’t work.  I’d also give it Brain and Brawn Barrier 5 in the initial phase, but likely drop these in later phases.

These are attacking moves to buff, however, and allow Trap to deal damage.  The initial phase can have weak Trap resistance of around that Lessen 3-5 range, allowing trap damage to completely tear through its setup.  Once through that initial phase, it will go on the offensive.  If you did a good job mitigating its buffs, lower offensive stats at the start will make it less threatening.  If you did not do a good job mitigating those buffs, good luck.  I’d want the second half of phase 1 to emphasize Double Drop, with the main attack being Bulldoze.  This limits your gauge recovery very quickly, and reinforces the idea of Trap being the best solution.  Trap deals damage per foe’s action, it doesn’t need you to be acting consistently.  Bar 2 would emphasize On a Roll 2 Flash Cannon, attempting to debuff your special defense, and Defense Crush 2, leading into Bar 3 where it shifts to Piercing Gaze with threatening moves like Zap Cannon and Rock Slide, and Steel Beam (with Standafast 9) as the big phase initiating desperation attack.

Registeel would be a Fighting-weak stage, and maybe it is cruel to make it immune to debuffs and be Fighting weak.  I’m sure Knight Diantha can handle it.

Available Counterplay Trap users aren’t too hard to come by.  Blaine can do it if you really needed to, but better options include Viola, BP Erika, Lucy, and MU Venomoth or Cloyster.  At premium levels you also get Wallace, Serena, and the upcoming Teatime Ingo.  There are plenty of trappers, and quite a few are F2P.

With massive buffs though, Snatch/Haze users are a possibility, with Brycen then having yet another use.  I actually love giving this guy more matches where he has a niche.

Anyone with Stalwart or Haste would be helpful to avoid the debuffs Registeel throws out.  Although, anyone who can buff those stats is probably fine too.  It’s not going to be necessarily spamming these attacks, and Flash Cannon in particular has low odds to get the drop anyway, so it’s not like it would get all that far.  I kept the odds low enough they shouldn’t go off that frequently, but high enough to make you nervous about sticking around.

Fighting types aren’t too common, but we do have Bruno, who is fantastic.  Korrina isn’t too bad either, and eventually Marshall will get a grid too.  Bea and Wally would probably appreciate getting to shine against something, after Knight Diantha rendered them both irrelevant.  And Impervious kinda evens the playing field, because now Knight Diantha isn’t just a kill button; she has to try like the others.

Flaws and Considerations Past the opening phase, without damage reduction, Trap is not as essential.  You could get through with a decent attacking unit.  But my hope is that bar 1 provides the understanding of Trap being the ideal solution.  High damage reduction but weakness to trapping to bypass a nasty setup phase is very similar to Cresselia in theme, with the difference being that Cresselia comes near immune after that initial phase.  Registeel would remain weaker to Trap than to much else, but an offensive approach still has some potential if you supply them with a Haze/Snatch user to avoid the routine buffs.

That said, I feel like this may not be doing much that’s unique compared to other fights, aside from consistently being weak to Trap.  Again, Cresselia would be the exact same general structure, with high damage reduction to everything as it sets up dangerous effects, with Trap being a way to quickly tear down its HP and avoid continuous buffs.  And setup phase into big attacks isn’t even that new; you could argue that’s how Cobalion plays once it hits mid-Bar 2 and starts gaining attack and cutting into defense every action.  So I feel like this one isn’t all that unique.  But I tried.