Celebi is one of the most reliable Calm Mind/Baton Passers in the game. It has the defensive stats, Recover and resistances to take a few beatings, and this version has enough Speed to ensure it gets in a Baton Pass against anything slower than 308, which includes Adamant Garchomp and any kind of Tyranitar that does not hold Choice Scarf, and most importantly, base 90 Speed Pokémon that run a Speed boosting nature, such as Lucario or Porygon-Z. While Psychic used to be the most popular attacking move on Celebi, Grass Knot helps Celebi to defend itself against Weavile better. You can Baton Pass out against Salamence and non-Choice Scarf Heracross anyway. As a bonus, it nearly OHKOs Dugtrio, but it isn't as much of a threat anymore as he was in Advance because Hidden Power Bug is now special and his best bet is the 3HKO Night Slash. A great thing about Baton Passing Celebi is that it helps against Pursuiters: if the Pursuiter is faster it will deal damage with 40 base power, and if it's slower it will hit your recipient. Psychic can still be used if you want to hurt Heracross and Salamence on the switch. Infernape will not be pleased either.
With Recover and solid base 100 Defenses, Celebi is an excellent candidate for a defensive seeder. Leech Seed will quickly frustrate most of its opponents, and Recover just makes life harder for them. Grass Knot is easily Celebi's most reliable attacking move, as it has STAB, 20 PP (32 with PP max) and being surprisingly powerful on many of the Pokemon that thrive in the OU metagame, most notably Tyranitar and Gyarados. Celebi's last move mostly depends on the trainer's need. Hidden Power Fire gives Celebi the opportunity to hurt Steel types such as Forretress and Metagross reasonably hard, whereas Hidden Power Ice severely dents Garchomp and Salamence. The EVs demonstrate how Celebi can be defensively oriented on the physical side. It is so resilient that not even an Expert Belt boosted Ice Punch from a maximum attack Adamant Electivire can 2HKO it. This particular Celebi set is often used as a utility counter in a team, as its typing and magnificent defenses allow it to counter threats such as Gyarados and Breloom.
This Celebi is designed to give the user information about the opponent's team, paralyze the opponent, and play accordingly. Its defense EVs allow it to never be OHKOed by a Life Orb Groudon's Fire Punch, and its special defense EVs allow it to never be OHKOed by a Choice Specs Mewtwo's Ice Beam. On the first turn, Celebi Thunder Waves and notes how much damage it takes. If it took 80%+, the opponent was most likely Banded / Speced and now crippled due to Thunder Wave. Celebi can switch to an appropriate counter, having given information to the user and still having the chance to remain relevant late battle with Recover. Thunder Wave and Recover allow Celebi to beat most Kyogre, Deoxys-A, Mewtwo (non Specs or Taunt versions) and Groudon (low Speed versions) one on one. The choice for the fourth slot is a team issue. Stealth Rock will help attackers like Rayquaza and Groudon sweep more effectively. Calm Mind allows Celebi to be a surefire counter to Kyogre. Leech Seed can be served to Pokemon like Blissey, Lugia and Giratina, all of whom generally force Celebi to switch out. Finally, Hidden Power Fire is there to deal damage to both Scizor and Forretress.
The competition for viable Swords Dance Baton Passers is a little tougher in Scizor and Gliscor, but Celebi still does rather well, especially since it is rather unexpected. And rightfully so: Celebi's physical movepool blows and it gets absolutely no STAB. Return is pretty generic, but at least it will KO Weavile after a Swords Dance. Aerial Ace is there if you want to hurt Heracross on the switch. Obviously you can still use Psychic or Grass Knot, but don't forget you'll want to ditch the Attack EVs and use Timid then. Either way, if you manage to get a Swords Dance in and Baton Pass out in time, your opponent will have an even harder time dealing with your Salamence, Rhyperior, Metagross or whatever physical hard-hitter you chose to pass to. Just let them Dragon Dance, Agility or Rock Polish and have fun 2HKOing or even OHKOing things they normally can't, like defensive Waters and Cresselia.
The focus of this set is Heal Bell. Like with Aromatherapy on Blissey, it has obvious pros and cons. On the plus side, it gets rid of status on your entire team. Gone with the freeze Weavile inflicted on your Metagross, the unsuspected paralysis or burn Gallade gave your Salamence or that surprising Toxic on your bulky Water. On the other hand, Heal Bell is pretty much telegraphed to your opponent if you send in Celebi after one or more of your Pokémon got inflicted with status. It does nothing to repel nasty opponents at all, and it gives things like Tyranitar an invitation ticket to come in for free and do horrible things with Celebi and/or its team mates. So if you think you can afford to trade a turn for nursing all your Pokémon, use this Celebi, but beware as that one turn may cost you the game sometimes. The rest of the deal is pretty obvious: attack or Leech Seed counters on the switch, and if you have suffered a wound so severe that Leftovers and Leech Seed don't cure it fast enough, Recover it off. It's the way this set worked in GSC and Advance, and it will probably remain this way forever.
Both Leech Seeding Celebi and Calm Minding Celebi can be horribly annoying, depending on what you're sending in as a counter. Imagine the face of your opponent when it turns you got both! This kind of Celebi not only stalls like a Brazilian on the losing end of a rated battle on NetBattle, but can also actually sweep with enough Calm Minds. Try not to get greedy because Celebi has the horrible tendency to get itself killed by critical hits. A bias to Defense is present in this set to avoid taking heavy damage from Pursuit. However, a Calm nature with a sizable EV investment in Special Defense is also viable, allowing you to more easily set up against special attackers. Even those that would hit for super effective will have trouble, if they don't have Choice Specs or STAB behind them.
A Celebi with this set takes ages to get rid of if you only have slow Celebi counters like Metagross and Tyranitar. Leech Seed opponents, repeatedly use Substitute to wear them down, and finish off with Psychic. Use Stealth Rock and/or Spikes to punish people trying to switch out of Leech Seed. Psychic is the better attacking option here because you'll want something to hit other Grassers like Sceptile. Baton Pass can hand some other team mate a 101 HP Substitute to work with, Recover makes Celebi's durability nearly overkill, and the Hidden Powers can be used to hit super effectively on other Grassers as well as specific threats. Basically, Fire is for Steels and Ice is for Dragons.
Unlike the other sets recommended, this one puts Celebi on the offense and your opponent on the defense. Leaf Storm will hurt anything not resistant—too bad a lot of things are actually resistant, which is why you have Psychic for secondary STAB. Use Grass Knot if you don't like the drawbacks of Leaf Storm. The third slot is reserved to hit other Psychics: Silver Wind will obviously do more damage, but U-turn gives you scouting potential. Hidden Power deals with Celebi's obvious weaknesses. Fighting hurts Dark-types with Pursuit a lot, Fire beats up Steels and other Grassers and Ground pulverizes Steels that aren't up in the air (like Metagross and especially Heatran). If you don't have access to or don't want Hidden Power, just chuck a move from the third moveslot in there, or look in the Other Options section for some information on the Electric attacks Celebi learns.
This set's purpose is to deal as much damage as possible to the opposition, unlike most of the other Celebi sets, which are primarily used defensively. Only Heatran and Houndoom resist the attacking combination of Fire + Grass + Psychic. Recover is on the set to heal off residual Life Orb recoil damage, as Celebi will have many opportunities to heal in battle due to its useful Fighting and Ground resistances. Hidden Power Ground can be used to deal damage to Fire Pokemon switching in on Celebi, like Heatran, Houndoom, and Arcanine. U-turn can be considered in order to save Celebi from potentially bad matchups, and it works well in conjunction with Leaf Storm due to the -2 Special Attack drop. Timid is chosen over Modest because it is impossible to have a Speed IV of 31 with Hidden Power Fire, meaning Celebi would always be slower than other neutral base 100 Speed Pokemon. 319 Speed allows Celebi to always outspeed and KO Lucario, Roserade, Porygon-Z, and Electivire unless they hold a Choice Scarf. It also allows Celebi to deal massive damage to Adamant (Yache Berry) Garchomp (who would otherwise outspeed a Modest Celebi) with Leaf Storm. Life Orb is the optimal item on this set instead of Expert Belt because Celebi will hit most of its targets for neutral damage. As for Leftovers, this particular Celebi set is not meant to take hits anyway. Other OptionsBy far Celebi's most interesting other option is Thunder Wave. It will completely cripple Gyarados, Salamence, Weavile and other fast sweepers that come in on Celebi, at least until they cure it with Blissey or their Celebi. Thunder Wave is definitely worth trying out sometime. The only reason it's not on the sets is because they are rather full already. Celebi gets three alternate Grass moves worth considering. Energy Ball works better than Grass Knot if the opponent is rather light—it has 80 base power, which wins against Weavile, Dugtrio and Vaporeon. However, Grass Knot has a lot more power against Milotic, Tyranitar, Rhyperior and others, so the vast majority of the time it is a superior option. Leaf Storm has only been mentioned on the Choice Specs set, but is worthwhile on any set except Calm Minding ones. Celebi has to hop in and out a lot, making the Special Attack drop not as significant, and the extra power is welcome. The low PP, however, is not, which is why Giga Drain isn't getting much more mentioning than the following: it was quite useful in Advance to take out Dugtrio in one hit and still have some HP to spare, but in this generation Dugtrio isn't an effective Celebi killer anymore and you've got many other good alternates. Charge Beam has a few cool uses. For one, it nets Celebi a nice boost in Special Attack 63% of the time you use it (factoring in the 90% accuracy). It's also a nice way of self defense against the monster that is Gyarados as well as against Skarmory. The fact that you can Baton Pass these lucky boosts makes it all the more worth considering. The base power is beyond pathetic though; if you want something a little better than that you can use Hidden Power Electric. If you don't have access to Hidden Powers like that, Shock Wave can be a substitute, but it's quite weak as well. While Hidden Power tends to be pretty hard to get right on Celebi in WiFi environment, it is a big help if you manage to get a proper one, or are playing on a simulator. As outlined in the Choice Specs set, Fighting helps against all these dangerous Dark-types and a few Steels. Ground is 4x effective on Heatran and Magnezone and does a number on Metagross. Fire and Ice help against other Grassers if you have trouble hurting them, the former beating up Steels whereas the latter is for Dragons. Stealth Rock also found its way into Celebi's movepool. While Spikes would have been preferable on a Pokémon with as much durability as this floating head of lettuce, it's better than nothing. Still, Celebi has so many awesome options that you're better off rounding out some other Pokémon's moveset with it. Stealth Rock hits quite hard on Celebi's "good friends" Salamence and Gyarados though, so it complements it nicely wherever you choose to put it on your team. Celebi makes a nice switch enforcer, and even better with Perish Song. It is arguably not as good as Roar or Whirlwind, but it helps a lot against Baton Pass chains unless they can get to Mr. Mime in time, or your opponent's last Pokémon. Protect stalls for Leftovers and Leech Seed recovery and scouts your opponent. I would say "it also speeds up the process of the Perish Song countdown", but using both of them on the same Celebi is wasting its versatility. Celebi also makes a very good user of Trick Room for the same reason Bronzong and Dusknoir do: they can take a hit or two and therefore get it in more than once without rolling over and dying. If you're looking for something to set it up for you, be sure to glance in Celebi's direction. Light Screen is great for adding some Special Defense to your team, and helps against that Choice Specs Salamence that loves to come in on Celebi. Reflect is a better choice though as it protects you against Pursuit. AncientPower would be good if it had more base power. As it stands, a super effective AncientPower does less than a neutral Psychic, making it pretty much only useful against Weavile or in situations where you don't know whether Skarmory, Weavile or Salamence is coming in while you want to hit all three reasonably hard. Heal Block would be interesting if it blocked Leftovers recovery, but sadly, it doesn't. Healing Wish is basically trading Celebi's life for that of one of your other Pokémon (since you should only be using it when something else is at death's door), but it isn't much more than novelty because it's so situational. Celebi is fast and durable enough to save its own butt with Recover, and is usually more valuable than whatever you're healing. Psych Up is pretty cool to copy Calm Minds and such from enemies. If Celebi can't win the war by itself, just Baton Pass to something else. EVsUnless Celebi is trying to sweep the opponent with Choice Specs, it should max out HP to take hits well from either side of the spectrum. 244, 305, and 308 are the Speeds it should be aiming at most of the time: 244 beats Jolly Tyranitar to the punch and 305 gets the jump on Adamant Garchomp. If you elect to invest to 305, you might as well go the full stretch and run 308 to outspeed all base 90 Speed Pokémon without Choice Scarf. Most of the EVing is obvious and outlined under each specific set, but generally you'll want to focus on one defense with your leftover EVs. OpinionIn Advance, there were a lot of doubts about Celebi being Uber or not. Diamond/Pearl pretty much declared Celebi "a good standard" by giving Pursuit to some extremely big threats and adding/evolving more Pokémon to counter it (Weavile and Heatran, most notably). However, it's still a highly viable Pokémon in OU play. Dugtrio lost a lot of power against this plant pixie with both Hidden Power and Sludge Bomb becoming special attacks. They gave Celebi Thunder Wave, Leaf Storm, U-turn and Energy Ball to toy with while keeping all of its old options. Celebi can be a pretty good offensive threat with Choice Specs and Calm Mind, but much more notable are its refusal to die to anything not named Megahorn and its ability to stall everything that doesn't carry that. Celebi's movepool is so insane and its stats complement it so well that it can easily stray from the recommended sets above and just do what it wants. None of its moves are necessary, but nearly all of them are useful. CountersYou probably saw it coming: Celebi's #1 counters pack Pursuit. Tyranitar and Weavile have been mentioned before: both of them have great Attack scores and get STAB on Pursuit. Tyranitar may be weak to Grass Knot, but his Special Defense boost in Sandstorm almost negates that. Metagross has Pursuit as well and is not afraid to use it (or a solid Meteor Mash if Celebi doesn't switch), and it is resistant to both Celebi's STAB moves. The same goes to Houndoom, except his Attack is rather unimpressive, so he may be better off using Nasty Plot or Will-O-Wisp while Celebi runs for the hills. Aerodactyl has a hard time coming in on Celebi and lost his Hidden Power Flying, but he too can carry Pursuit, in addition to a super effective Aerial Ace, Ice Fang or Fire Fang. Skarmory learns Pursuit as well but obviously isn't going to use it. Instead, he will use his huge amount of free time against Celebi (earned courtesy of his resistance to both of Celebi's STAB attacks) to rack up Spikes or get in Stealth Rock. He can Whirlwind away Celebi's stat boosts and Substitute as well. Scizor can not only Pursuit from 130 base Attack, but also use the horrifying U-turn to OHKO Celebi, or at least break his Substitute and/or shrug off Leech Seed. These Pursuiters will pose a big threat to Celebi, but their trap is not guaranteed to work. If Celebi goes out using Baton Pass, Pursuit remains 40 base power. The same goes when a slower Celebi uses U-turn. Salamence is 4x resistant to Grass. Usually you will find a Salamence coming into Celebi throwing a Choice Specs Flamethrower at you, which will be a 2HKO. Dusknoir's Pressure can deplete PP pretty quickly, but he won't really harm Celebi without a lot of Attack investment and he won't do a thing against the Baton Passing variants. Heatran does a great job at stopping Celebi dead in its tracks. It shares the resistances to its STAB moves that Skarmory has, but it deals much more damage with its STAB Fire moves. It can't really stop a Baton Passing Celebi though. Azelf resists Psychic and takes a pathetic 20 base power attack from Grass Knot, and can seriously dent Celebi with Flamethrower or U-turn. If that Azelf carries Taunt, it can stop Celebi from Calm Minding, Swords Dancing, Recovering, Seeding, Heal Belling, etc. However, it is OHKOed by the Choice Specs set and is 2HKOed by Energy Ball assuming Celebi gets a Calm Mind in when Azelf switches into it. Weezing can Haze away Celebi's stat-ups and hit it with a super effective Sludge Bomb. Only use him if you made sure the particular Celebi you're facing is one without Psychic or you won't get your healthy Weezing back. Suicune should play the reverse way when Roaring away stat-ups. Its generally more sturdy against special attacks, but it shouldn't be taking Leaf Storms or Grass Knots. |
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