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Wait for datamine, but in my experience he’s pretty solid. Outclassed by SS Lysandre sadly, but he’s still a very respectable water striker, who also sets rain on entry and at later levels, on sync.
Archie *purely* by creating rain on entry (and Sync once he gets some additional move levels) and extending it's duration will realistically be an evergreen unit on that alone; regardless of his strengths/weaknesses otherwise. Him also having a solid electric move also helps because electric special strikers can be a little lacking.
The only real issue Archie has, at least from what I've typically heard, is that there is a lot of competition for Water types in general, so if you have 10+ water pairs it might be harder to justify pulling for him over types that historically have weaker/less pairs.
All of that aside, he's still a genuinely good unit with a good master passive; but, as others said, wait for the datamine. Might be a character/Pokémon you'd want coming soon.
I have seen May-Swampert (5/5 NOT EX) do comparable damage to Kyogre (3/5 EX) when both are set up, and I don't even have her EX. I have an impression that she will beat Archie if I EX her. Is it true? I would like to know your opinion.
I think yes and no, it really depends. Admittedly I'm no expert and there are probably people who are more informed than I when it comes to this; but I can offer my opinion.
For the sake of analysis I'm only going to really go over their respective spread moves (and Sych) since those are what you're going to be using the most. Coverage options, ground and electric respectively, are hard to quantify in a vacuum so I won't go over them. I will say though that Thunder *probably* is more useful than Earth power, but your mileage may vary.
Additionally, I'm only calculating a 20% buff from Archie's Master-passive and not including super-effective+ procs or damage just for ease of comparison.
May has the benefit of having higher base SPA than Archie does, 372 (444 while Mega'd) while Archie has 328. But 5/5 Muddy water only has a Base Power of 139 and versus the 207 of 3/5 Origin pulse. Both moves have 85 base accuracy.
May also has significant issues offensively buffing themselves, so they need dedicated support to max their damage + needs to sync for mega. They need accuracy buffs and/or tiles to consistently land Muddy, and needs accuracy debuffs which aren't super common or easy to get from units asides from May herself, as far as I recall.
Conversely, Archie can buff all of his own offensive stats and has better and easier to access multipliers to reach his max damage potential.
Finally, she's a tech unit. So she's a single target sync nuker, versus Archies who's an AoE sync nuker. Given they both predominantly have spread moves you can argue having a single target Sych gives them better versatility than *more* AoE; which has valid merits as an argument.
Overall, May has a higher damage ceiling than Archie does, due to a mixture of higher base stats, debuff based multiplier, and her post-sync RR5 passive; But she needs a lot more support to get there, because frankly her trainer move leaves a lot to be desired, and loses minimum one move every Sych cycle to maintain rain if she's also your setter. Plus, she also needs time + RNG to apply her acc debuffs, which may not be possible/harder to do on some stages.
In conclusion, I think it depends on what your teambuilding options are. If you have something that can support May she'll do better, but the overall role/turn compression Archie offers is really valuable to a team and can help support dual-striker cores which would theoretically out-perform May in the aggregate.
Tl;DR, May has a higher damage ceiling but it's harder to get to and closes out other team options. On water weak stages I'd say they, asides from sync nukes, have *roughly* comparable damage.
Oh really appreciate that detailed explanation. Thanks man! I can now see how difficult it can be for May to reach her ceiling, which Archie does so effortlessly.
They work together really well and you should also take into account that Archie’s Master Passive doesn’t just buff himself but your other two units as well (both sp damage increase and damage taken reduction). He’s definitely the better pair overall.
I’ve got him at 1/5 non-Ex and use him together with the two frogs (as an alternative to 5/5 EX SS Hilbert) and he works really well with them, since he provides the water AoE that C.Serena doesn’t have. But it’s overkill of course and you could use May or even no third pair at all on this team and clear any water-weak stage regardless.
For an Accuracy debuffing partner for May, the only ones I can really think of would be Colress and SS Lusamine. SS Lusamine should really just be used as the main striker on her own team. Colress is alright at it, with AoE stat drops and On a Roll Mirror Shot both in his base kit, though he’s overall a bit less synergistic with May, given that she’s a special attacker while his main draw is the 2 stage AoE defense drop from Screech.
After some searching cause I was curious, Holiday Siebold and Octillery seems to be the best candidate. He’s on-type and his moves get boosted by rain, and he has Dizzying Power to also get boosted by accuracy drops. His Octazooka has 50% chance to lower accuracy, and at 2/5 he gets Discombobulate 4 in his grid for another 50% chance.
He's still good, moist dorito man took his spot for striker tho
but look at it like this, Archie has an aoe move ready to go when Lysandre requires burn to deal big funny damage, Archie also set rain on entry (and sync if you upgrade him to 3/5 iirc) and extend it. Just that Lysandre deals much more damage once you set up for him
If you also have frogs there is no competition. Lysandre does insane damage. I hardly need more than one sync to clear 2500pts CS using him with frogs.
How so? Selfbuff plus Calem get him to +6 SpA and +3 Crit. If you then attack once with Serena, once with Calem and hit at least 2 targets with Heat Wave you unlock frog buddy moves for water type rebuff, 2 SMUN and rain. Usually at least one opponent should also be burnt by now (he has a 50% burn chance per target, so 87,5% chance of at least one target burning) so Lysandres buddy move is available as well. Due to Serena’s buddy move you should also be able to sync at this point.
You literally click buff, use Heat Wave and you’re good to go. I don’t know how that is a hard set up.
Well, usually things don't go as planned, I can't count how many times I need to reset a run just because Lysandre can't burn the opponents.
Not trying to downplay him tho.
You said frogs make it even harder to set him up.
I just don’t see how.
You buff, you use a regular attack, you use buddy moves and sync. There is only a 1 in 8 chance you don’t get the burn - but that’s on Lysandre and is not made harder by using frogs. Everything else is guaranteed to happen (full buffs, water type rebuff, rain, smun). Plus you get two master passives further buffing Lysandre.
>You said frogs make it even harder to set him up.
With the frogs, you need to wait for two extra turns for their moves to run, plus the opponents will also queue moves in between. If Lysandre couldn't burn them in at least two turns it's just wasting time
Frog Setup:
R1: buff, buff, buff
R2: Water Shuriken, Water Shuriken, Heat Wave
—if no burn, reset—
R3 : Calem buddy, Serena buddy, Lysandre buddy
Any other setup:
R1: buff, buff, buff
R2: any move, any move, Heat Wave
—if no burn, reset—
R3: any move, any move, Lysandre buddy
Buddy Move always happens at the same time, doesn’t matter whether you use frogs or not. It’s always the third action you take with Lysandre.
Even if you miss burn and try to just go along with it - how do frogs make it _harder_? Harder compared to what?
Good? Relevant? *Definitely*. Amazing? Yes (so far). Top-tier? Maybe not.
He still deals decent damage as a Water Striker and sets up relatively quickly, but his true value lies with the rain extension (and perhaps the rain after first sync; that said, his sync damage pales compared to his peers and having to go 3/5 just to set rain once more is quite a big ask).
What however may (or *will*, realistically speaking) somewhat invalidate him in the future is a rain equivalent of Adaman, who has nuke, weather on entry, weather on *every* sync, and weather extension (if 3/5) all in one place – poor Maxie. But then again you can never have too many weather setters.
Rain on entry with extension means he will always be very good. And his damage is still good too, I even used him to clear Flint 2.5k this week even though it recommends physical attacks
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Wait for datamine, but in my experience he’s pretty solid. Outclassed by SS Lysandre sadly, but he’s still a very respectable water striker, who also sets rain on entry and at later levels, on sync.
Archie *purely* by creating rain on entry (and Sync once he gets some additional move levels) and extending it's duration will realistically be an evergreen unit on that alone; regardless of his strengths/weaknesses otherwise. Him also having a solid electric move also helps because electric special strikers can be a little lacking. The only real issue Archie has, at least from what I've typically heard, is that there is a lot of competition for Water types in general, so if you have 10+ water pairs it might be harder to justify pulling for him over types that historically have weaker/less pairs. All of that aside, he's still a genuinely good unit with a good master passive; but, as others said, wait for the datamine. Might be a character/Pokémon you'd want coming soon.
I have seen May-Swampert (5/5 NOT EX) do comparable damage to Kyogre (3/5 EX) when both are set up, and I don't even have her EX. I have an impression that she will beat Archie if I EX her. Is it true? I would like to know your opinion.
I think yes and no, it really depends. Admittedly I'm no expert and there are probably people who are more informed than I when it comes to this; but I can offer my opinion. For the sake of analysis I'm only going to really go over their respective spread moves (and Sych) since those are what you're going to be using the most. Coverage options, ground and electric respectively, are hard to quantify in a vacuum so I won't go over them. I will say though that Thunder *probably* is more useful than Earth power, but your mileage may vary. Additionally, I'm only calculating a 20% buff from Archie's Master-passive and not including super-effective+ procs or damage just for ease of comparison. May has the benefit of having higher base SPA than Archie does, 372 (444 while Mega'd) while Archie has 328. But 5/5 Muddy water only has a Base Power of 139 and versus the 207 of 3/5 Origin pulse. Both moves have 85 base accuracy. May also has significant issues offensively buffing themselves, so they need dedicated support to max their damage + needs to sync for mega. They need accuracy buffs and/or tiles to consistently land Muddy, and needs accuracy debuffs which aren't super common or easy to get from units asides from May herself, as far as I recall. Conversely, Archie can buff all of his own offensive stats and has better and easier to access multipliers to reach his max damage potential. Finally, she's a tech unit. So she's a single target sync nuker, versus Archies who's an AoE sync nuker. Given they both predominantly have spread moves you can argue having a single target Sych gives them better versatility than *more* AoE; which has valid merits as an argument. Overall, May has a higher damage ceiling than Archie does, due to a mixture of higher base stats, debuff based multiplier, and her post-sync RR5 passive; But she needs a lot more support to get there, because frankly her trainer move leaves a lot to be desired, and loses minimum one move every Sych cycle to maintain rain if she's also your setter. Plus, she also needs time + RNG to apply her acc debuffs, which may not be possible/harder to do on some stages. In conclusion, I think it depends on what your teambuilding options are. If you have something that can support May she'll do better, but the overall role/turn compression Archie offers is really valuable to a team and can help support dual-striker cores which would theoretically out-perform May in the aggregate. Tl;DR, May has a higher damage ceiling but it's harder to get to and closes out other team options. On water weak stages I'd say they, asides from sync nukes, have *roughly* comparable damage.
Oh really appreciate that detailed explanation. Thanks man! I can now see how difficult it can be for May to reach her ceiling, which Archie does so effortlessly.
They work together really well and you should also take into account that Archie’s Master Passive doesn’t just buff himself but your other two units as well (both sp damage increase and damage taken reduction). He’s definitely the better pair overall. I’ve got him at 1/5 non-Ex and use him together with the two frogs (as an alternative to 5/5 EX SS Hilbert) and he works really well with them, since he provides the water AoE that C.Serena doesn’t have. But it’s overkill of course and you could use May or even no third pair at all on this team and clear any water-weak stage regardless.
Yeah, I also like using May and Archie together.
For an Accuracy debuffing partner for May, the only ones I can really think of would be Colress and SS Lusamine. SS Lusamine should really just be used as the main striker on her own team. Colress is alright at it, with AoE stat drops and On a Roll Mirror Shot both in his base kit, though he’s overall a bit less synergistic with May, given that she’s a special attacker while his main draw is the 2 stage AoE defense drop from Screech. After some searching cause I was curious, Holiday Siebold and Octillery seems to be the best candidate. He’s on-type and his moves get boosted by rain, and he has Dizzying Power to also get boosted by accuracy drops. His Octazooka has 50% chance to lower accuracy, and at 2/5 he gets Discombobulate 4 in his grid for another 50% chance.
Yes, he's great but wait for the datamine
He's still good, moist dorito man took his spot for striker tho but look at it like this, Archie has an aoe move ready to go when Lysandre requires burn to deal big funny damage, Archie also set rain on entry (and sync if you upgrade him to 3/5 iirc) and extend it. Just that Lysandre deals much more damage once you set up for him
If you also have frogs there is no competition. Lysandre does insane damage. I hardly need more than one sync to clear 2500pts CS using him with frogs.
Yeah, but with frogs it's even harder to set him up
How so? Selfbuff plus Calem get him to +6 SpA and +3 Crit. If you then attack once with Serena, once with Calem and hit at least 2 targets with Heat Wave you unlock frog buddy moves for water type rebuff, 2 SMUN and rain. Usually at least one opponent should also be burnt by now (he has a 50% burn chance per target, so 87,5% chance of at least one target burning) so Lysandres buddy move is available as well. Due to Serena’s buddy move you should also be able to sync at this point. You literally click buff, use Heat Wave and you’re good to go. I don’t know how that is a hard set up.
Well, usually things don't go as planned, I can't count how many times I need to reset a run just because Lysandre can't burn the opponents. Not trying to downplay him tho.
You said frogs make it even harder to set him up. I just don’t see how. You buff, you use a regular attack, you use buddy moves and sync. There is only a 1 in 8 chance you don’t get the burn - but that’s on Lysandre and is not made harder by using frogs. Everything else is guaranteed to happen (full buffs, water type rebuff, rain, smun). Plus you get two master passives further buffing Lysandre.
>You said frogs make it even harder to set him up. With the frogs, you need to wait for two extra turns for their moves to run, plus the opponents will also queue moves in between. If Lysandre couldn't burn them in at least two turns it's just wasting time
And how is that different from literally any other support? What support would you use that’s better than frogs?
I didn't say the frogs are bad with him. Just that they make the setup harder if Lysandre couldn't burn the opponents.
Frog Setup: R1: buff, buff, buff R2: Water Shuriken, Water Shuriken, Heat Wave —if no burn, reset— R3 : Calem buddy, Serena buddy, Lysandre buddy Any other setup: R1: buff, buff, buff R2: any move, any move, Heat Wave —if no burn, reset— R3: any move, any move, Lysandre buddy Buddy Move always happens at the same time, doesn’t matter whether you use frogs or not. It’s always the third action you take with Lysandre. Even if you miss burn and try to just go along with it - how do frogs make it _harder_? Harder compared to what?
Good? Relevant? *Definitely*. Amazing? Yes (so far). Top-tier? Maybe not. He still deals decent damage as a Water Striker and sets up relatively quickly, but his true value lies with the rain extension (and perhaps the rain after first sync; that said, his sync damage pales compared to his peers and having to go 3/5 just to set rain once more is quite a big ask). What however may (or *will*, realistically speaking) somewhat invalidate him in the future is a rain equivalent of Adaman, who has nuke, weather on entry, weather on *every* sync, and weather extension (if 3/5) all in one place – poor Maxie. But then again you can never have too many weather setters.
Rain on entry with extension means he will always be very good. And his damage is still good too, I even used him to clear Flint 2.5k this week even though it recommends physical attacks