Natu

[leingodf8]

Name: Natu
Type: Psychic / Flying
Abilities: Synchronize: When this Pokemon becomes Poisoned Paralyzed or Burned, so does the opponent.
Early Bird: The Sleep condition lasts for half as long.
Dream World: Magic Mirror: It can reflect the effect of a stat-changing move.
Stats:
HP: 40
Att: 50
Def: 45
SpA: 70
SpD: 45
Spe: 70

Level Up Moves
1. Peck
1. Leer
6. Night Shade
9. Teleport
12. Lucky Chant
17. Miracle Eye
20. Me First
23. Confuse Ray
28. Wish
33. Psycho Shift
36. Future Sight
39. Assist Power
44. Ominous Wind
47. Power Swap
47. Guard Swap
50. Psychic

TM/HMs
TM03. Psycho Shock
TM04. Calm Mind
TM06. Toxic
TM10. Hidden Power
TM11. Sunny Day
TM16. Light Screen
TM17. Protect
TM18. Rain Dance
TM19. Telekinesis
TM21. Frustration
TM22. Solarbeam
TM27. Return
TM29. Psychic
TM30. Shadow Ball
TM32. Double Team
TM33. Relfect
TM40. Aerial Ace
TM48. Sing A Round
TM51. Side Change
TM70. Flash
TM73. Thunder Wave
TM77. Psych Up
TM85. Dream Eater
TM86. Grass Knot
TM87. Swagger
TM88. Pluck
TM89. U-turn
TM90. Substitute
TM92. Trick Room

Egg Moves
Haze
Drill Peck
Quick Attack
Faint Attack
Steel Wing
Featherdance
Refresh
Zen Headbutt
Sucker Punch
Synchronise
Roost
Skill Swap

Ahhh what can I say about Natu. He looks like something a kindergartner would make, gluing little eyes, wings and a feather to a round green ball. I always looked out for his big daddy totem pole ever since gen II and now with little cup, I decided to take a look at his little baby ball.

Pros:
Magic Mirror: Natu is the only pokemon in little cup with access to magic mirror, and only one of the 3 overall that can learn it. This ability puts Magic guard to shame in sheer annoying-ness, as it blocks almost anything not physical, that's aimed at it. The more notable things it blocks are entry hazards, phasing attempts (except dragon tail and overhead throw), leech seed, and any direct status inducer. While this ability isn't quite as useful in the hard hitting metagame of LC, it can definatly prove very useful in the right scenario.

Movepool: Natu's offensive movepool is rather average, but still enough to get by. Whats more interesting is its supporting movepool, including moves like wish, dual screens, thunder wave, and psycho shift.

Cons:
Stats: While his moovepool and ability wishes he were a tank, he is not. Hes got quite decent, 70 SpA, and 70 Spe, but it won't take much to bring the little guy down

Typing: Psychic Flying is a bit of a hit and miss. While being able to take pretty much any fighting attack, and being immune to ground is nice... it really is weak to a lot of common attacking types. (ice, eletric, rock, dark, and ghost) This really hurts his standings even more as a supporter.

Here are a couple movesets I've come up with

Lead the way
Natu @ Focus Sash / Life Orb / Choice Scarf
116 Att / 196 SpA / 196 Spe
Hasty
Magic Mirror
Psychic / Psycho Shock
Sucker Punch / Shadow Ball
U- Turn
Drill Peck / HP Fire / HP Fighting
The main thrill of this set is that no lead can set up entry hazards or status you, leaving you free to act as a fairly decent anti lead. The ev's set maximize SpA and Spe, letting you hit hard and move fast, the rest get dumped into attack to use some of its more prime physical options. Psychic is your best stab attack, hitting a number of common leads quite hard. Sucker punch is nice to help pick off sashed leads, or fast ghosts/psychics. U-turn gives natu a chance to scout switch-ins and switch to suitable counters. Also allows it to escape possible shadow tag pokemon. The final move is for coverage, and depends on what you want to do with it. Drill peck is chosen as another stab move to hit special walls harder, but it leaves you vulnerable to steels. Using a Hidden power will mean you will need to invest more into Spe or SpA slightly so as to keep them at max, so your attack will drop from 13 to 12, but sucker punch will still be doing similar damage anyways.
If running a scarf, one may opt to remove all physical attacks whatsoever, and istead run a specially based lead. In that case, switch to timid, and move the Attack evs into HP. Psycho shock is probably better on that set, as it no longer has the ability to hit purely special walls like mantyke, very hard.

Set up and GO
Natu @ Life Orb / Salac Berry
200 SpA / 200 Spe / 76 Def
Timid
Magic Mirror
Calm Mind
Psychic / Psycho Shock / Assist Power
Shadow Ball
HP Fighting / HP Fire
Substitute / Future Sight
A simple calm mind set. Once again, magic mirror helps this by preventing anything from statusing or even phasing Natu. After a calm mind, natu will be sitting at a comfortable 24 SpA, and decent enough 17 Spe. Choice between the psychic move is up to preference. Psychic is the strongest right off the bat, hitting a lot of things hard after a CM, Psycho shock can surprise special walls who may be weak on their physical side. Assist Power is interesting, with each stat boost it gains 20 power (off a base of 20). So it would take 2 CM before it truly became effective. Still if you somehow manage to make 2 CM, and possibly a salac boost, your looking at a 120 base power stab attack coming off of 32 SpA. The evs are set for life orb, just minimize your HP to 19, so that you only take 1HP per life orb hit. If running salac, switch the Def EVs to hp so your hp isn't divisible by 4.

I will support you!
Natu@Oran Berry / Evolution Stone / Light Clay / Flame Orb
196 Spe / 196 HP / 76 Def / 36 SpA
Timid
Magic Mirror
Thunder Wave / Psycho Shift
Psychic
Reflect / Wish
Light Screen / Confuse Ray
Ahaha, ya this isn't exaclty going to be a standard set, but he gets some good options, and it might surprise a few. I kinda threw in a bunch of different set ideas to a possible support set for Natu to run. The choice of item is dependent on the moves you pick, oran berry helps survive a bit longer possibly, and evolution stone makes your defenses somewhat bearable. Light clay is there if you want to make natu a duel screener, and flame orb if you want to abuse the psycho shift burn to cripple physical switch ins. If not wanting to use screens, wish can help to heal your injured, and confuse ray can be used to run a parafusion set with thunder wave. Speed is maxed so that natu can set up a screen in a couple threats so he can cushion the blow.

There are a couple other options to consider. One could opt not to use magic mirror, this lets natu have access to Heat wave from gen 4, which substantially helps his calm minder against steels like bronzor, but generally the loss of magic mirror isn't worth it, as without it he is generally outclassed.

As for counters, the list is fairly long. Really anything that out speeds natu will probably be able to take the little guy out, and bulky things like munchlax have no problem switching into most any of his attacks (bar a psycho shifted burn). Pursuit screws him over royally, and most priority abusers aside from mach punch ones, will finish him rather swiftly.

So that's my thoughts on Natu in LC. Post your thoughts, and any suggestions on new sets that I may have overlooked.

 

[Banryu]

It is my opinion (and you might want to get some others) that Psycho Shock is a better option in every way over Psychic. Even though Psychic has 10 more base power, the ability to break Special Walls while investing all your offense EVs into just Sp. Atk. is priceless, IMO. I'd totally use Psycho Shock over Psychic on anyone that can learn it.

Aside from that, I don't have too much to add... I recall once getting absolutely wrecked by a Natu lead, I think it used Trick-Scarf, but I believe that Trick is a 4th Gen tutor-exclusive move for Natu, and thus has little application here. Pretty good so far.