In Advance, the Pokémon equivalent of the Gods (Arceus?) taunted Azumarill. One hand made Azumarill the surrogate twin of Medicham, letting it enjoy the benefits of Huge Power. The other hand, however, dealt it a horrid blow: the lack of physical STAB. With the advent of Diamond / Pearl and the split of physical / special attacks, Azumarill is able to reach its full potential as a top-tier physical Pokémon. Azumarill makes a very sturdy Choice Bander. Its convenient resistances to Water, Ice, and Steel, and respectable HP, give it several chances to come in and deal damage. Unlike its physical Water counterpart Gyarados, Azumarill lacks a weakness to Rock and therefore doesn't take as much of a beating from Stealth Rock and Tyranitar's Stone Edge. Speaking of Gyarados, our Water rodent is able to resist Waterfall / Ice Fang and 2HKO it with Double-Edge, assuming no Intimidate. There are some legality issues with this set. If you use Body Slam, you are locked into Ice Punch and Focus Punch. If you use Aqua Jet, you are locked into Double-Edge and Focus Punch, and finally, if you use Ice Punch, you are locked into Focus Punch.
I'll get this out of the way: Sing is a very unreliable move. However, Diamond / Pearl is so offensively oriented that sometimes you have to go out on a limb and surprise your opponent. With a Life Orb, you still get the luxury of an Attack bonus but also obtain the freedom of switching moves. Take advantage of this by sleeping your opponent's counter and possibly using Focus Punch on the switch. Aqua Jet is illegal with Sing, hence its exclusion from this set.
Azumarill's Water resistance and 101 HP Substitutes allow it to be an effective Subpuncher. The general strategy is to lure out / switch into Pokémon like Blissey, Milotic and Suicune and set up a Substitute they can't break. With this accomplished, you can pull off a Focus Punch on enemies that are statused or weak to Fighting, Body Slam for paralysis, or Toxic walls that can't break the Substitute but can recover off the Focus Punch damage. Be wary of how you get this in. Azumarill will be most effective against Milotic if another Pokémon on the team is already sleeping or you invest an insane amount of EVs in Speed (as well as have a Jolly nature) to outspeed it. Suicune might carry Sleep Talk, but if it doesn't, you can use Toxic to force it to rest while you send in another Pokémon to finish it off. Sometimes Waters carry Hidden Power Electric for Gyarados as well, which will screw over the strategy for this set. If this is the case you can at least get off a Toxic before switching into a special wall. Ice Punch hurts Garchomp and Salamence, who otherwise don't take too much damage from this set.
The potency of Belly Drum cannot be ignored on a Pokémon with Azumarill's Huge Power ability. Water + Normal offer great coverage, and if you're confident with your prediction, you can utilize Ice Punch instead of the Substitute that makes Belly Drumming into Salac Berry range easier for most battlers. Azumarill will have 327 Speed if the Salac Berry kicks in, which should usually be enough to take out a few Pokémon before Azumarill meets its match. And sorry guys and gals, but Belly Drum and Aqua Jet are illegal on the same set (probably for good reason). Other OptionsIf your team doesn't have any paralysis support and you don't care about using moves with 90% accuracy (hint: don't use Sing if you do!), Aqua Tail is a stronger alternative to Waterfall and can be substituted on any of the sets. Toxic can also be used on any of the sets because Azumarill lures out bulky Waters. Superpower is a decent move, but with both Focus Punch and Brick Break at Azumarill's disposal you have better options. It should also be noted that Superpower is illegal with both Aqua Jet and Ice Punch. EVsThe primary EV set given in the sets is optimal; it lets you outspeed Blissey without sacrificing too much defensive power. If you don't care at all about outspeeding Blissey, give 240 HP / 252 Attack / 8 Defense / 8 Special Defense a whirl; it's slightly more defensive. OpinionPhysical STAB, massive Attack, decent defenses and convenient typing cement Azumarill as a physical threat. To counteract Azumarill's paltry Speed, Aqua Jet lets it get the jump on opponents as long it's boosted. With a Choice Band, Aqua Jet does more than 50% to Tyranitar and 2HKOs Azelf some of the time. Late game, it can pick off opponents that don't resist Water with relative ease. It tends to lure out bulky Waters, which can be set up on with Substitute and hit with Toxic if you carry it. CountersEmpoleon really rips through Azumarill, sporting a resistance to 3 of Azumarill's attacking moves; beware of Focus Punch, though. Without Ice Punch, Tangrowth isn't a pal either, possessing Defense and HP that make Skarmory a tad green. Aside from that, there isn't much that takes a well predicted move from Azumarill. Usual defensive Pokémon like Rhyperior, Skarmory, and Bronzong get knocked back by physical Water STAB coming off effectively 657 Attack. Sleep Talking Suicune can knock it flat, and if you're up against an Azumarill without Substitute or Toxic, Slowbro and Hypnosis Milotic work. To defend against Azumarill properly, it's recommended to be able to read your opponent like a large print copy of Dr. Seuss and pack Salamence / Gyarados in addition to a Normal resister. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
