New and 'creative' moveset/EV spread thread Mk. 5

Athenodoros

Official Smogon Know-It-All
I have swept teams with this Luke set:



Lucario @ Life Orb
Modest Nature (+SpA, -Atk)
36 HP | 252 SpA | 220 Spe
Agility
Aura Sphere
Hidden Power Ice
Dark Pulse | Shadow Ball

The speed EVs allow him to outrun Scarf Azelf and Scarf Starmie after an Agility.
The choice between Dark Pulse and Shadow Ball is hard: Dark Pulse can flinch | Shadow Ball hits Heracross and can drop SpD
The problem with any Agility Luke set is the drop in power over sets like SDLuke, and this is exacerbated by sacrificing the base power of Close Combat/Ice Punch/Crunch for 5 base points in Sp. Att. For instance, even the Super Effective STAB Aura Sphere does not 2HKO Blissey. For this reason, I think that Luke would struggle after the two surprises of a special set and an Agility set are sprung, and as another example, it does not OHKO physical Skarmory. For this reason, it would really need to be a clean-up sweeper, at which it obviously excels after an agility, and probably in an overwhelmingly physical team. This would seem to have problems with synergy (as Luke shares common Ground and Fire weaknesses of physical attackers) but could work well at the end. Have you tried it much?
 
Hi everyone :)

This is a somewhat bizarre set which I've been using recently and have had a LOT of success with. It focusses on abusing Gengar's ability to force switches, and works amazingly with Spikes/TSpikes support.


Gengar @ Leftovers / Life Orb
EV's : 4 HP / 252 SpAtk / 252 Spd
Timid nature
-Substitute
-Disable
-Shadow Ball
-Focus Blast

This looks like a gimmick but it's not. It plays pretty simply. If you switch in on something you force out, use Substitute. If the opponents counter is slower (and usually vulnerable to Toxic Spikes), you can attack first, then Disable its offensive option, at which point most defensive pokemon will be unable to adequately harm Gengar and will be forced to switch. Gengar is still an enormous special threat with either item; I preferred Leftovers but haven't done enough testing to say which is best. You can also carry out this strategy against slower opponents 1v1, you Sub first turn, they presumably break your Sub, and you Disable them. Very few opponents which aren't at risk of being KO'd by Gengar carry more than one attack which can deal significant damage to it.

Against faster opponents, or those with priority, you need a Substitute up, but this is not difficult for Gengar to achieve against most of the defensive and support pokemon in the metagame. There are almost no pokemon in OU which can outspeed Gengar but not be killed by it first from behind the Sub, barring priority and Choice users. This Gengar destroys most priority and Choice users with Disable, while killing the few faster things such as Starmie and Azelf itself.

As I've said, this set forces a simply insane amount of switches. From my experience, many counters to the SubSplit set are simply useless against this Gengar, and even once the opponent realises I have Disable it is still incredibly difficult to even force out. It misses the ability to beat Blissey by itself compared to the SubSplit set, but it can still prevent Blissey from hitting it with Disable, and combined with Toxic Spikes you can still beat her just as effectively with your Sub intact.
 

Athenodoros

Official Smogon Know-It-All
I would say it is reasonably new. I have never seen a Gengar with Disable. The only thing I would question is its ability to stall, because it does not take too much to do 25% to a Gengar, and 80% accuracy on Disable might hurt. Although I do know that it can very effectively wall some, including other Gengars. It seems like a solid Pokemon. And also, Serebii says Gengar could only learn Disable in HGSS.
 
Bubbly, I think your gengar will die to easily. I mean with both sub and life orb against a decently bulky team with a smart player I don't think it will do that great. It also needs a sub which it can't always get. As athenodoros said that 80% accuracy being the key to this set seems kind of...bad. However it looks like it could work if used properly.
 

Athenodoros

Official Smogon Know-It-All
As an update, I came across your Gengar set for the first time today (in a 5th gen battle, admittedly), and it was not hard to beat. It didn't have enough bulk to work. I think it would be too hard to use, just because it can't hold onto those substitutes.
 
Mmmkay. I've been doing some extra testing on this Gengar, and decided that it is definitely worse to other sets on full offensive teams, just because its not hard to simply play it around with switches until it runs out of health.

However, on semistall it still seems like a complete beast, I haven't actually had a battle in which it hasn't had a significant impact.
 
Hi guys, I was thinking of making a PP stall set for Spiritomb, and it goes a little something like this:

Spiritomb @ Leftovers?

Bold? Nature 116 HP 140 Def 252 spd EV's?

Substitute
Protect
Spite/Shadow Ball/Dark Pulse/???
Grudge/Destiny Bond

this set takes advantage of Spiritomb's lack of weaknesses and his ability: Pressure.

Basically, if you can get ingrain support (ie from Smeargle) or some other healing support (even wish) you simply sub/protect to heal, and Spite the enemy where considered safe (ie, if your substitute hasn't broken) - an attack could be an option, but this set is aimed on stalling, and (i think, but if I'm wrong, don't blame me) Substitute Blocks taunt...

Grudge/Destiny bond is for when you run out of PP (after the opponent does) - quite simply, Grudge if you think the opponent won't switch after a while, and to finish off his last few PP of attacks... Destiny Bond if you decide the opponent will switch to a new attacker, so you can get a surprise kill... of cource... Spiritomb isn't that fast...
 
PP Stall Spiritomb is a very old set that used to be kinda fun. However, it really suffers from not having great defenses combined with no good recovery (and Toxic Spikes/Spikes weaknesses). Whatever you do Taunt will screw you up.

That's not to say the set can't work, if the opponent uses lots of things like Heatran/Tyranitar with low PP STAB it can be pretty useful./ But it tends to die really really quickly.
 

Athenodoros

Official Smogon Know-It-All
Substitute Move Description said:
Substitute does not block Attract, Destiny Bond, Disable, Encore, Foresight, Guard Swap, Haze, Heart Swap, Imprison, Miracle Eye, Odor Sleuth, Perish Song, Power Swap, Psych Up, Roar, Role Play, Skill Swap, Spite, Taunt, Torment, Transform, or Whirlwind.
This is a problem, because most competitive teams have a Taunter on them, and it completely neuters Tomb. Also, the lack of recovery hurts, although admittedly Ingrain/Aqua Ring helps this. Basically, it works just like Stallrein, which is awesome in Hail. It's a cool idea, aside from Taunt.
 
The problem with any Agility Luke set is the drop in power over sets like SDLuke. . . I think that Luke would struggle after the two surprises of a special set and an Agility set are sprung, and as another example, it does not OHKO physical Skarmory. For this reason, it would really need to be a clean-up sweeper, at which it obviously excels after an agility, and probably in an overwhelmingly physical team.
Okay. I'm doing finals right now, which means I'm spending WAY too much time thinking about pokemon. I've been breeding for a Modest Lucario to make a specs set, and I was loafing around the Ssmogon site when I found the old article on Wallbreaking (It's here if anyone's interested:http://www.smogon.com/dp/articles/wall_breaking)

One of the things that caught my eye was that they mentioned Lucario as a common mixed wallbreaker. Huh, I said to myself. Pretty sure that there aren't any mixed Lucario sets on the battledex. I checked, and there aren't.

Why? Lucario, to me, seems PERFECT for a mixed wallbreaker. Lucario has such awesome offensive stats . . .

When I compared him to my other favorite wallbreaker though, NP Mixape, I noticed several problems.

1. No Fire. Skarmbliss being the premier walling combination in OU, you really want a special fire attack.

2. Speed. Lucario's speed is above average, but for a sweeper, you want blazing, not above average.

3. You really want your mixed sweepers to have two good attacking types. Infernape is a prime example. In Lucario's case, fighting is stupidly good, but steel is redundant and generally bad.

Trying to take these into account (and understanding that the first and third problems can only be worked around, not solved) I made up this set.


Lucario @ Life Orb
Mild Nature (+SpA, -Def)
220 Atk/ 252 SpA/ 36 Speed
Agility
Aura Sphere
Close Combat
Shadow Ball

Okay, some notes. I sacrificed a LOT of things for this set. We don't have any priority. We are also no longer outspeeding scarfed Starmie or Scarfed Azelf. I put 36 speed evs in there to beat Scarfed Rotom, but that's it. The rest of the set is for damage. You get a solid OHKO on Blissey with Close Combat (so solid, in fact, that you may want to ditch some attack EVs for more speed, I'm not sure) and (more importantly) a solid 2HKO on every Skarmory with Aura Sphere: the specially defensive version takes 53% - 62.3%, and you have a good chance to OHKO the Physically defensive version after stealth rock. Vaporeon is 2HKOed after stealth rock damage with close combat, although hippowdon is not (even if you manage to guess whether its specially or physically defensive).

I don't know. Part of me thinks this set is a terrible idea; maybe I've sacrificed too much to beat Skarmory and Blissey. You have to catch Skarmory and Vaporeon on the switch-in, for example, to make sure they don't get you--if you agility on the switch, you'll only get to hit them once, before they phase you away. Thoughts?
 
I think you're trying to do too much with one set. Being both a wallbreaker and an agility-sweeper means you're flexible versus both stall and offense, but it comes at a high cost.

Also, going back to the point of a wallbreaker: It's to break walls. SDluke can break a lot of walls actually, I don't see much need for better wallbreaking ability.

What he could use is speed and flexibility. I happened to come across a set for 5th Gen rock/fighting Terakion, which has both Rock Polish and Swords Dance. Having both on one set gives you flexibility in choosing power or speed (or both, when up against a noob).
The downside is that Lucario lacks a powerful 2nd stab, or complementary move. The best I can think of is something like SD, Agility, CC, and Crunch/SE.
 
Stone Edge / Close Combat / Swords Dance / Agility would probably be the best, since Crunch, although giving better coverage, is just too weak to kill stuff anyway.

However, the problem with this is that Agility is still weak and now lacks a coverage move, and you'll never have a chance to SD, whereas SD first lacks Extreme Speed.

I dunno, it's useable of course, but I think it would just be generally outclassed.
 
This is my breloom i've used for a while now, just looking for suggestions.

Breloom
SporePunch

Spore
Focus Punch
Seed Bomb
Facade
Item: Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Adamant Nature
Ev's: 12 HP, 252 Atk, 244 Spe

I kinda based him off the sub punch set, substituting substitute for facade, and i use him as a physical sweeper. switch in on one of his resistances, spore, and then focus punch. seed bomb is there for coverage, and facade gets the poison boost. the only problem for this set would be gengar because hes immune to focus punch and facade as well as resisting seed bomb. i was also thinking of making him a partner for scizor, and i have a set i think might work with it.

Scizor
i dont have a name for it.
U-turn
Bullet Punch
Brick Break
Roost
Item: Leftovers/Life Orb
Technician
Adamant Nature
EV's: 4 HP, 252 Atk, 252 Spe

I know what your thinking: uber tank moves with swords dance EVs? it sounds crazy but i think it just might work. it resists all of brelooms weaknesses except fire, and scizor is generally a good partner for breloom. U-turn is to scout, bullet punch just cause its awesome on scizor, brick break for coverage, and roost to restore when he gets low. any HELPFUL criticism would be appreciated. thanx.
 
Breloom
SporePunch

Spore
Focus Punch
Seed Bomb
Facade
Item: Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Adamant Nature
Ev's: 12 HP, 252 Atk, 244 Spe

I kinda based him off the sub punch set, substituting substitute for facade, and i use him as a physical sweeper. switch in on one of his resistances, spore, and then focus punch. seed bomb is there for coverage, and facade gets the poison boost. the only problem for this set would be gengar because hes immune to focus punch and facade as well as resisting seed bomb. i was also thinking of making him a partner for scizor, and i have a set i think might work with it.
I'm pretty sure that's not a new set... just saying.
 

Athenodoros

Official Smogon Know-It-All
Actually, it is the standard physical sweeper set with Focus Punch instead of Sky Uppercut. However, without Substitute you are probably better off with Sky Uppercut instead, because it will be much harder to get Focus Punch off successfully.
 

Zephyr

Life Stream
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Actually, it is the standard physical sweeper set with Focus Punch instead of Sky Uppercut. However, without Substitute you are probably better off with Sky Uppercut instead, because it will be much harder to get Focus Punch off successfully.
Probably why you're either using Subpunch or sweeper, not a combination.
 
Hi everyone :) This is probably going to be a pretty big post so bear with me. These are some random ideas I've had and wanted to run by you guys.


Healing Wish Blissey
Blissey @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 164 SpDef / 252 Def / 92 Spe
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Healing Wish
- Seismic Toss / (other required move as per team)
- Thunder Wave
- Softboiled

I'm not sure if one of these has been suggested before, but it is really incredible for offensive or balanced teams. Basically, this set allows Blissey to combine its great special walling capacity and other support functions with a way to maintain momentum and break down opposing defense. Personally I was using it with Flamethrower in the second slot over Seismic Toss along with a DD Gyarados and it simply breaks teams all by itself. I'm sure you've seen this idea before but basically, you send in your sweeper, do as much damage as possible without dying to weaken your counters, Healing Wish to bring your sweeper straight back to full health and vitality, then sweep.

What this set has over Cresselia, which is the only common Lunar Dance / Healing Wish user, is Blissey's unmatched defensive properties and Softboiled, as well as a better typing. Cressy does have Dual Screens, but that set has a number of problems, particularly, having only one free moveslot (so whether you go with Thunder Wave or Ice beam etc, most things can set up on you easily), no recovery (and so an inability to deal with any powerful attackers beyond setting up screens and then dying), and the obvious fact that if the opponent has a Scizor or Tyranitar Cresselia tends to die extremely quickly.


Toxic Machamp
Machamp @ Leftovers
Ability: No Guard
128 HP / 252 Atk / 128 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Toxic
- DynamicPunch
- Stone Edge
- Substitute

Look, this is a minor change. I just consider Toxic to be a more useful move for Machamp, especially since Confusion allows him to abuse it. Payback is more useful than Toxic against: Rotom-A (Toxic is still VERY useful), Gengar (inarguably, but Stone Edge can KO after some residual damage from LO and SR), and sometimes things like Celebi.
However, pokemon like Gyarados (in particular), Gliscor, Zapdos, and numerous bulky pokemon who Machamp can't significantly damage, are all hurt much more by being inflicted with Toxic.


Taunt Gengar
Gengar @ Life Orb / Leftovers (generally only if you use Disable or WoW in the 4th slot)
Ability: Levitate
252 SpAtk / 4 SpDef / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Taunt
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Pain Split / other (Thunderbolt is the main secondary option, but Substitute, HP Fire, and Will-o-wisp have all been tested and work well).

This absolutely breaks stall, no questions asked. Don't tell me that the SubSplit set does; Blissey may not counter that Gengar effectively, but every stall team carries pokemon like Hippowdon, Gyarados, Payback Forretress, Vaporeon etc which are capable of taking multiple hits from Gengar and either phazing or KOing in return. Gengar's natural offensive properties and trollish speed simultaneously allow him to be effective against offensive teams.

Taunt is the primary move, and for good reason. Depending on the 4th slot, many stall teams are literally incapable of hurting this Gengar and have to rely on LO recoil and Sandstorm to kill him (Pain Split makes this impossible, but means that things like Payback Forretress can beat you 1v1). Taunt should be self explanatory, I feel. It means, no more pseudohazing, status, recovery, hazard stacking, while Gengar is in play.
The 4th slot is really interesting. Pain Split is the obvious choice, enabling you to keep Gengar healthy and preventing stall teams from just switching around between things like Gyarados to wear you down. However, there are a LOT of other options. Thunderbolt is one of my favourite, since it OHKO's Gyarados, and 2HKO's things like Vaporeon and Suicune which can be troublesome otherwise.
Substitute isn't actually a great choice IMO, since it simply kills you too quickly, but it does prevent Pursuit trapping by ScarfTyranitar and ScarfScizor. HP Fire is obvious for both Scizor and Forretress (and Brave Bird Skarmory), and does more damage than his other attacks against most Steel and Grass types.
Will-o-wisp is another thing which actually works surprisingly well on such a frail pokemon, crippling Gyarados and common switchins like Tyranitar once it becomes clear you're not running a SubSplit set.


ChestoRest Suicune
Suicune @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Pressure
252 HP / 32 SpAtk / 224 Spe
Timid Nature
- Rest
- Calm Mind
- Surf
- Ice Beam / Hidden Power (Electric)

This is a pretty self explanatory set which has been seen in a few RMT's but bizarrely never put on site. It works because Suicune can set up on so many things in the metagame, and because one Suicune's Calm Minding gets past a certain level not even STAB'd SE attacks can hurt it. Even at +1, Scarf Rotom-A's Thunderbolt can't 2HKO. Anyway, ChestoResting allows it to get to that point where you just can't be stopped (except by Toxic Blissey, Water/Grass types with Toxic, and...no, that's it).
Max bulk to survive 4 Seismic Tosses outside of Sandstorm, 224 Spe and Timid to outspeed max Speed Gyarados and anything below that.


Bulky Toxic Scizor
Scizor @ Leftovers
Ability: Technician
252 HP / 80 Def / 176 SpDef
Careful Nature (+SpDef, -SpAtk)
- Toxic
- Roost
- U-turn
- Knock Off / Bullet Punch / other (Light Screen, Brick Break etc)

This is a really gorgeous set, emphasising Scizor's amazing typing combined with Roost. First of all, Toxic maims a lot of Scizor's common switchins, such as Gyarados, Rotom, and Zapdos, as well as things like Swampert and other bulky pokemon which are often switched in to take "CB" U-turns. U-turn allows you to scout while still doing acceptable damage. Bullet Punch is powerful even without investment and can pick off weakened enemies, while Knock Off is useful both for crippling numerous pokemon, and for scouting movesets. I've used this set a lot recently and it is really amazing.


EDIT: One last thing, for the standard LO Jolly Mamoswine, Substitute seems superior in its last slot over Superpower which is of no use except against Bronzong. Substitute would in theory at least enable him to cause a massive amount of damage since almost nothing in OU except Bronzong and Skarmory and defensive Celebi can actually take his attacks.



Right, that's it :) Hope you managed to read at least a bit of that.
 
"Anti-Special Sweeper"
This is a gimmick I created one day

Lopunny@Focus Sash
40 HP/216 Atk/252 Spe
Naughty
-Fake Out
-Mirror Coat
-Flail
-Quick Attack

This set will work on any non-ghost special sweeper w/o focus sash and/or priorty move especially ubers like Dialga, Palkia, Kyogre, etc, but then you have fake out to flail a lead The main use is to surprise the common physical wallbreaker... and if you play PBR, you know the noobs on the game will be pretty surprised.

40 HP EVs will bring down Scarf Wailord or almost enough for quick attack to eliminate it. Then proceed with flail. You should be able to sweep as long as the opponents pokemon has lower than 104 speed Neutral/Hindering speed nature non ghost/rock/steel and isnt a physical wall.
 
Um...that won't work in Sandstorm, with any entry hazards down of any kind either. Plus its kind of useless against anything else, plus if you mispredict and Mirror Coat before you get attacked, even assuming for some reason there is no sandstorm/hail and no hazards, then the opponent will simply stat boost up or switch to a physical attacker which you can't do anything to. Sorry, but even for a gimmick set for taking down noobs, that's off the mark.
 

Jolly 252 attack/ 252 speed/ 4 hp

Dynamic Punch
Stone Edge
Ice Punch
Bullet Punch

This set is really a lot of fun. I've been using it on PBR, where its been met with very considerable success. Max speed is very useful, as it outspeeds a lot of defensive pokemon you dont normally think about, like swampert, suicune, and neutral nature tyranitar.
 
That's a Choice Band right next to that Machamp picture? If it is, then I don't really like it. Honestly Machamp really likes its versatility because of its good SE coverage and the confusion side effect on its STAB. Not to mention, almost everyone will switch straight into Rotom/Gyarados etc who you won't hurt anyway.

The set's not terrible, I just think that you're trading too much away in exchange for that extra power.
 

Athenodoros

Official Smogon Know-It-All
You should tell us how your set works, but just looking at it:

I don't think it would really work. Swampert's STAB moves get walled by such a huge number of Pokemon that just having them is quite risky. However, after a few curses it looks like it would work, assuming you can get counters, especially grass types, out of the way. I also think you are probably better off with Rest, so that you can heal up and possible try twice to boost.
 

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