This Gyarados is designed to switch into Garchomp and Heracross, and makes a great lead Pokémon in general thanks to Intimidate, so that's why it's leading off this analysis. The EV spread for this particular Pokémon is crucial, and I'll outline the thinking behind it below. The idea is to switch into Pokémon like Heracross and take little damage, and use your prediction skills to decide what to do next. If you think something like Starmie is coming in, use Earthquake. If you think something like Dusknoir, Cresselia or Weezing are going to pop out, go ahead and use Taunt. Taunt is a fantastic move that forces your opponent's hand—most Pokémon that switch into Gyarados only pose a threat to it because they have Electric attacks or crippling attacks like Thunder Wave, Will-O-Wisp, or Roar. Taunt forces them to attack, making it much easier for a Pokémon like Electivire to come in. In many cases, it's less threatening to know that an enemy Pokémon must attack you if it wants to stay in. Many battlers underestimate Taunt, which can allow Gyarados to sweep them with just two attacks. While BulkyGyara indeed has Dragon Dance, it's almost an afterthought to use it on this Pokémon, at least in the early stages of battle.
This is more like it for you flashy, "sweep first ask questions later" folk. Nothing resists Water / Ice / Ground but Shedinja and Surskit, against which you should be forfeiting anyway. You can definitely go with Stone Edge over Ice Fang if you don't mind the former's accuracy, because then only ultra-defensive Grass Pokémon have a shot at walling you, but then you will no longer OHKO Garchomp with a single Dragon Dance. 244 Speed outpaces Tyranitar's max 243 speed and allows Gyarados 366 Speed after a DD, besting Azelf, Raikou, and Starmie, who top out at 361 Speed. Just so you know, against 252 HP / 0 Defense Starmie, you'll do 80-94% with Earthquake with a once-Dragon Danced, Life Orb Earthquake. That alone makes a case for the 60 base power Bite and its awesome 30% flinch rate over Earthquake, as Bite has a 79% chance to OHKO the same Starmie. Absolute max Defense Slowbro (394 HP / 350 Def) takes 47-55% from Bite if Gyarados has a Life Orb, and a decent 36-43% with Leftovers if you decide you don't like the recoil effects of Life Orb (you will do 74-88% to the above Starmie with Leftovers). Since, after STAB, a normally effective Waterfall has the same base power as a super effective Bite but the latter has a 30% flinch rate to the former's 20%, you should be using Bite instead of Waterfall against pretty much every Psychic or Ghost-type: Pokémon like Cresselia, Azelf, Dusknoir, and Gengar. If you're going to use Bite over Earthquake, use Stone Edge instead of Ice Fang so you can hit bulky waters like Milotic, Gyarados and Suicune better. And if you're going to use Life Orb, you should probably only bring out your Gyarados in the late-game, or lead with it for Intimidate and save it till the late-game, so it doesn't take much or any damage throughout the course of the battle.
Basically the same as DDGyara, but with Stone Edge over Dragon Dance for nearly unparalleled type coverage. Now that damn Surskit can be met with a swift Stone Edge! This set can catch enemy Gyarados on the switch with Stone Edge. Otherwise, you cannot do much to them with a neutral Ice Fang as your best option.
Gyarados has the ability to easily switch into battle and force the opponent to switch. This set takes advantage of both factors in order to set up. On the turn the opponent switches to its counter, Gyarados will Substitute. Depending on the counter, Gyarados will either Dragon Dance or Substitute accordingly, and proceed to sweep with a huge advantage in Speed and Attack. It might seem like the ease by which this is done is being oversimplified; however, this cannot be farther from the truth. How does nearly every individual deal with Gyarados? By switching, which gives Gyarados the opportunity to set up its Substitute. For example, if the opponent switched in Starmie, Gyarados will Substitute down to Liechi activation and Dragon Dance on the final Substitute breaking turn, giving Gyarados +2 Attack, +1 Speed and a 200 BP move to easily OHKO Starmie with. However, if something like Celebi was switched in the turn Gyarados used Substitute, Gyarados will then Dragon Dance, and use Substitute if it feels a Thunder Wave / Leech Seed coming or Dragon Dance if a Grass Knot is coming. Depending on the amount of health left, Gyarados will then (probably) Substitute again for the Berry activation, and have +3 Attack, +2 Speed and 200 BP move to deal with the opposition. Liechi Berry or Salac Berry is purely a matter of preference at the end. It depends on whether having Gyarados outspeed Deoxys-S that switch in later or having the extra boost of Attack is preferred, mostly to OHKO threats like Celebi.
Designed to switch into enemy Gyarados and tank away in general. I would say it's a good status taker, but Gengar (Hypnosis) is expected to carry Thunderbolt, while Weezing and Dusknoir (Will-O-Wisp) frequently carry Thunderbolt and Thunderpunch, respectively. It's a fine switch into Milotic to absorb Hypnosis or Toxic if you're interested in doing that. Other OptionsA Wacan Berry (Electric resist) is a viable option on a Pokémon with 95 base HP and 100 base Special Defense, since most non-STAB Electric attacks will not OHKO Gyarados regardless. You can put a Choice Scarf on anything for a literal change of pace, and if you choose to do so for Gyarados, just pick CBGyara and replace its Choice Band. You can throw Thunder Wave over Taunt on some of the Dragon Dance sets because paralysis is awesome, and it's not like Electivire or Ground-type Pokémon, the latter by nature of Gyarados being a Water-type, are switching into Gyarados anytime soon. You can use Return with Waterfall, Dragon Dance, and Taunt to get a combination of two moves that hits most Pokemon neutral, as only Dialga, Empoleon, and Shedinja resist it. You can also decide to run Jolly on the DDGyara set, but the prevalence of Choice Scarf somewhat dilutes the sweetness that surpassing 394 Speed with a single Dragon Dance once had. EVsThe magic of the BulkyGyara set is really all in the EVs, so allow me to explain them. The spread: 216 HP / 16 Atk / 176 Def / 100 Spe, for 385 HP / 319 Atk / 238 Def / 223 Spe. 385 HP allows Gyarados to switch into Stealth Rock 5 times without dying (assuming it has Leftovers). 16 Atk EVs grants it its first possible bonus point; 12 would give it only 317 attack. 223 Speed allows it to outspeed max Speed Jolly Garchomp (333) after one Dragon Dance, which would give it 334 Speed. Finally, "the rest" of the EVs go into Defense; 176 is a lot, but it really allows Gyarados to weather repeated hits from Heracross. Speed should be addressed before dumping the rest of the EVs into Defense even if its primarily going to be used defensively. A 216 HP / 16 Atk / 132 Def / 144 Spe grants you 319 Atk / 227 Def / 234 Spe; the extra Speed lets you reach 352 Speed after a Dragon Dance, which beats Timid Gengar (350), Adamant Weavile (349), Naive / Jolly Infernape (346), Adamant Dugtrio (339) and, of course, all non-Choice Scarf Garchomp. 244 Speed allows you to outpace Timid Starmie's max 361 Speed after a Dragon Dance, as that will put Gyarados at 366 Speed. It also allows you to outspeed every non-Scarf Tyranitar variant possible before you Dragon Dance, as Tyranitar maxes at 243 Speed with Jolly. You can max Speed on CBGyara if you want, but nothing is really in between 243 Speed and Gyarados's max, neutral Speed nature 261 Speed, and tying with enemy 261 Speed Gyarados isn't very important because one of you will be Intimidated and therefore likely switching out. Opinion"You are 6-0ed by Gyarados if it gets a DD" was a sentence posted seemingly every week during the development stage of our DP Discussion & Speculation forums when RMTs started getting tossed around. Gyarados has gotten so much better with every generation, and is one of the most used OU Pokémon in DP. Its loss of a physical Hidden Power Flying ended up not mattering to it at all, with the now-physical Waterfall and its new toys in Ice Fang, Stone Edge, and an improved Taunt, which lasts 3-5 turns now as opposed to 2. As far as using Gyarados is concerned, it would help to have a Rapid Spinner like Donphan or Starmie on your team to take care of Stealth Rock. The much bigger issue, though, resides with Electivire. Its Motor Drive ability raises its Speed by one stage (a 50% increase with the first hit) when it is struck by any Electric attack. Gyarados is only weak to Electric and Rock attacks, and since it has a 4x weakness to the former, almost all Gyarados counters will use Electric attacks against it. If you switch out Gyarados and switch in Electivire into an Electric attack, you're in business, since Electivire, with ThunderPunch / Ice Punch / Cross Chop / Earthquake, hits 13 of the 17 types for super effective damage. This is fairly predictable yet still something to take account of, as it's an effective strategy nonetheless. CountersA Bold Porygon2 with a defensive EV spread can switch into Gyarados, Intimidate back with Trace, and inflict heavy damage with Thunderbolt. Trace, Bold Gardevoir can accomplish the same goal to a slightly lesser extent. Starmie will get the jump on Gyarados pretty much every time, and one that focuses on HP EVs can run a Surf / Thunderbolt / Rapid Spin / Recover set, still outspeed non-Scarf Infernape and a lot of even one-Dragon Dance Gyarados at the same time, and remain a decent counter thanks to Recover. You might sometimes need a backup on this however, as Gyarados can sometimes be EVed to be faster than Starmie after a Dragon Dance and survive the Thunderbolt; also watch out for Electivire switching into Thunderbolt. Bold Cresselia with Charge Beam can usually do the trick too, though it doesn't like Waterfalls boosted by either Dragon Dance or Choice Band. Uxie may be "a suckier Cresselia" but it does get Thunderbolt whereas Cresselia must rely upon Charge Beam. Interestingly, Gyarados can counter an opposing Gyarados pretty well with Stone Edge, assuming the opponent's Gyarados doesn't also carry Stone Edge. An Impish Tangrowth can shrug off Ice Fangs with its 125 base Defense and use a STAB Power Whip on Gyarados. Celebi's high HP and Defense lets it take on Ice Fang as well, and can hit Gyarados hard with a 120 base power Grass Knot. It can heal itself up with Recover so it can keep coming in. Leaf Blade Leafeon performs a little worse in this department, but it makes a fine counter to Gyarados that do not have Ice Fang. Bronzong can definitely switch into any variant without much risk, but it will pretty much need HP Electric since Grass Knot is too weak from it and Gyarados will likely Taunt, expecting Hypnosis. As for a few Normal Pokémon that don't resist any of Gyarados's attacks but still deserve some mention, Slaking and its oft-overlooked superb base 150 HP / 100 Def can come in on any Gyarados and scare it with ThunderPunch or even Thunderbolt. Blissey cannot counter Gyarados with Thunderbolt, because a boosted Waterfall is usually a 2HKO. Thunderbolt can also 2HKO, but Blissey is slower and can be flinched. Lapras with Thunderbolt will stand up to any Gyarados variants that do not have Stone Edge, and ThunderPunch Metagross fares similarly against Earthquake-less ones. Forretress with Zap Cannon might be able to do the trick, but if Gyarados is staying in to attack Forretress keep in mind that Zap Cannon's already crappy accuracy will be lowered to a 40% chance to connect with Gyarados thanks to Waterfall's 20% flinch rate. Any Water type can use Hidden Power Electric as well without missing a beat: Milotic, Slowbro, Suicune, Vaporeon...you get the idea. The simple fact in Advance was that Gyarados, with one Dragon Dance and Earthquake, could outspeed and OHKO every Pokémon but Zapdos that got STAB on the type Gyarados is 4x weak to: Electric. In DP, Gyarados now gets Stone Edge and Ice Fang, in addition to its STAB Waterfall, to deal with Zapdos, who therefore goes from Gyarados's #1 counter in Advance to a very poor switch into it without a major investment in HP and Defense. As for Skarmory, Gyarados's other major counter in Advance, Taunt is the reason I feel it's one of the worst Pokémon to switch into Gyarados. Even Brave Bird Skarmory with up to 206 Attack doesn't fare all that well against the standard 385 HP / 238 Def (stat) spread, against which Brave Bird will do a 29-35% which may fail to 3HKO even if Sand Stream is negating Gyarados's Leftovers. Speaking of Leftovers, the standard Skarmory will generally have to forego them in favor of Shed Shell if it doesn't want to get trapped by Magnezone, whose popularity will likely hinge on Skarmory's as it did for Magneton in Advance. A Dragon Danced Waterfall from 319 Attack that does 31-36% on 334 HP / 407 Def Skarmory will actually always 3HKO Brave Bird Skarmory thanks to the recoil damage of Brave Bird: 11-13% of Skarmory's standard 334 HP, so Skarmory will only get two cracks at Gyarados assuming neither Waterfall flinches. If Brave Bird Skarmory is facing off against a 383 Attack Gyarados, its Brave Bird will do a considerable 36-42%, but that is assuming it isn't flinched by the Dragon Danced Waterfall that will do 36-43% to 334 HP / 407 Def and is not factoring in the recoil damage: 14-16%. The implications are simple: Skarmory will either not be flinched but still be 2HKOed virtually every time thanks to recoil damage, or Skarmory will get to attack once assuming the first Waterfall doesn't flinch. Brave Bird may have become the standard on Skarmory months after competitive play kicked off, but I still wouldn't place many bets on Skarmory beating Gyarados. |
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