Latias returns from the Advance generation into the treacherous grounds of the 4th generation Uber battling. In the faces of Kyogre and Palkia, she stands in their way from completely ripping apart an Uber team. With her incredible hold item, Soul Dew, Palkia’s Life Orbed Spacial Rend also fails to OHKO. Using her Speed, she can threaten an OHKO on Palkia with Dragon Pulse before Palkia delivers a finishing blow (Watch out for Choice Scarf versions). As for Kyogre, she stands without fear as its Ice Beam only does approximately 48% maximum, allowing Latias to Calm Mind and then Grass Knot or Thunder Kyogre into oblivion. With the help of Recover or Roost, Latias restores her health back into usability, and thus shines again in the battlefield, ready to take something else down. If the user is satisfied with only one offensive move, Refresh rids her of annoying status conditions like Toxic that malevolent beasts such as Fighting Arceus and Blissey enjoy inflicting on Latias, and the paralysis she might face when trying to switch into Kyogre's or Palkia's Thunder. Although Safeguard cannot stop any status she switches in on, it supports her team and keeps her safe for five turns so it is a decent alternative to Refresh. Latias can also make decent use of Substitute, although these variants of Latias are rare, and generally you will want to run the other suggested moves. Team Options & Additional Comments >>>
A set exclusive to Latias. One may prefer this set over the previous set if his/her team is loaded with Pokémon who pack no recovery moves. Wish allows them to be healed. Protect allows Wish to heal Latias and scout for Choice Banded moves, but Recover’s instant recovery will be handy if you are facing a slow Pokémon with low health. Toxic works nicely in conjunction with Protect and Wish, while Grass Knot or Thunder gives more diversity in attacking. Calm Mind ensures that Latias is not defeated by other Calm Minders such as Kyogre. Team Options & Additional Comments >>>Team OptionsLatias’s main boast in Ubers is that she can switch in on Kyogre and support the team, as she is mostly outclassed in Calm Minding by Pokémon such as Mewtwo. With Soul Dew, however, she is still exceptional. Focus more on the team as a whole rather than supporting Latias itself. If your team is full of Life Orbers that cannot recover or Pokémon weak to Stealth Rock (such as Rayquaza), Latias helps out with Wish, and for more stallish teams, Latias can phaze and Thunder Wave. Scizor is the main Steel-type used in Ubers, and Tyranitar pops up occasionally, so you will still need ways of getting around these. Blissey is just as omnipresent as well, and Ubers Blissey are even more specially defensive. Magnezone can trap Scizor and blow up on Blissey, and Pokémon like Dialga have problems with none of these. Other OptionsRoar allows Latias to phaze other Calm Minders trying to set up on her, such as Blissey and Arceus. Psycho Shift allows Latias to transfer status inflicted on her to the opponent, but as an anti-status move, it pales in comparison to Refresh and Safeguard. Hidden Power Fire and Dragon Pulse are unresisted by anything but Heatran, and will help Latias fend off those nasty Steels such as Metagross, Scizor and Forretress. However, Latias will lose the ability to beat Calm Mind / Rest Kyogre one on one. Psychic allows Latias to hurt Fighting Arceus. Finally, Draco Meteor is always available as an option if one wants to score some KOs where Dragon Pulse cannot, but it should generally be left to Latios, where he can use his higher Special Attack to score an instant OHKO on Mewtwo. Don’t bother with Ice Beam—it fails to OHKO Groudon so one might as well use Dragon Pulse for the better coverage in the Uber metagame. Latias is fairly adept at setting up a Light Screen with her massive Special Defense, allowing her to take special attacks like they’re banana peels flung at her. Reflect is also an option, but her significantly lower Defense does not help with that. Lugia sets up Reflect better thanks to its much higher Defense. Healing Wish is quite gimmicky, as most of the time, sacrificing Latias is not worth it. Finally, Latias learns Charm, but Reflect is generally superior to it because the opponent could switch out of Charm, and the fact that Charm fails to touch Metagross thanks to Clear Body. Trick is viable, allowing Latias to become a revenge killer of sorts with Choice Scarf, which is especially helpful against common threats like Dragon Dance Rayquaza. Blissey will detest Choice Scarf, which could well open a sweep for the likes of Kyogre easier. However, Latias won't like being without Soul Dew, and often enough Latios is slightly better at drawing in Blissey. EVsThere really is no Latias that should be used with lower than 307 Speed. In fact, Latias generally shouldn’t be used with lower than 330 Speed. However, if the user feels that Palkia is no threat at all, and would like to conserve Latias' EVs and nature for something else, he/she may want to go with 307 Speed, which requires 204 EVs if Latias has a neutral Speed nature. Next is max Speed with a neutral nature (319 Speed, 252 EVs). This allows Latias to outrun maximum Speed Jolly Rayquaza and tie with other max Speed neutral Speed natured Latios and Latias. After that, one might as well go to 330 Speed, which requires 176 Speed EVs with Timid nature to outspeed a max Speed Hasty or Timid Palkia. 320 Speed does absolutely nothing but outspeed an opposing neutral nature Latias and Latios. Next is 334 Speed, which requires 192 Speed, if one is paranoid of Garchomp in Ubers. Due to Garchomp's presence, this Speed setting is highly recommended. Latias can outspeed a neutral max Speed Arceus with 216 EVs in Speed, putting her at 341 Speed in the stat. Finally, there’s max Speed as an option. With absolute max Speed, Latias can outspeed every single aforementioned threat, neutral max Speed Darkrai, and Hidden Power Fire Latios or Latias, all of them topping at 349 as opposed to Latias’ 350. When Latias’ Speed is built to outspeed Palkia and Garchomp, she must carry at least 307 Special Attack (204 EVs with a non boosting nature) to guarantee an OHKO against Palkia with Dragon Pulse. 307 Special Attack means that Dragon Pulse does 324 damage minimum against Palkia. Another option available is to drop her Special Attack down to 265 (36 EVs). This will leave Latias with plenty of EVs to spare, while still OHKOing Palkia with Dragon Pulse after Stealth Rock damage. Be aware that she loses the ability to 2HKO Groudon with Dragon Pulse, as well as 2HKOing Scizor with Thunder. With no Defense EVs at all, Latias needs at least 120 EVs in HP to guarantee survival against a Choice Banded Meteor Mash from a Metagross with 375 Attack. OpinionLatias is an amazing Pokémon. With her high Special Attack, Speed and Special Defense, she is regarded as one of the best Kyogre counters. This makes Latias fit easier into a team compared to Latios for many players. Even with Latios’ boosted Special Attack, he can’t even touch Blissey, something that both twins often note as their nemesis. One thing Latios has over Latias is the ability to 2HKO Metagross with Thunder without any Calm Minds, but at the same time, Latias is capable of surviving a Choice Banded Meteor Mash, almost neutralizing that advantage. Latios' other advantages are OHKOing Mewtwo with Draco Meteor and 2HKOing Tyranitar with an unboosted Grass knot. Let’s not forget that Latias packs handy resistances and an Earthquake immunity, allowing her to switch in on many moves in the Uber metagame. Her job in the metagame is done through the item Soul Dew, boosting her already massive special stats even higher. CountersIf Blissey has Toxic, she will always beat Latias without Safeguard, Refresh, or Psycho Shift. Even if she has Safeguard, Icy Wind can allow Blissey to get in a Toxic before Latias can refresh the Safeguard after it expires the first time. Thunder Wave Blissey can be annoying, as being fully paralyzed can spell your doom if they also have Seismic Toss. Tyranitar and its massive Special Defense will allow it to easily switch into Latias and beat her down with a Choice Banded Crunch. Even a Soul Dew boosted Grass Knot is incapable of 2HKOing Tyranitar (assuming that he is carrying Special Defense EVs). If Latias is not packing Thunder or Hidden Power Fire, Scizor can switch in and deal massive damage with U-turn, or punish a fleeing Latias with Pursuit. Metagross is a great check thanks to resistance to Dragon Pulse, Grass Knot, and Ice Beam, meaning it really only has to worry about Thunder and Hidden Power Fire. It has a chance to OHKO Latias with a Choice Band Meteor Mash (guaranteed after Stealth Rock damage), and a Choice Band Pursuit will do even more on the switch. Dark / Bug Arceus can Calm Mind alongside Latias and eventually beat her down with a super effective Judgment. Ghost Arceus takes less than 50% from an unboosted Dragon Pulse and 2HKOs back with Shadow Claw. Steel Arceus will resist a lot of Latias's attacks, much in the same way Metagross does. Registeel’s massive Special Defense allows it to take anything but Thunder and Hidden Power Fire (unless the weather is favorable for Registeel), and beat Latias with Ice Punch. As for the revenge killing, Deoxys-A and its high Attack will OHKO Latias with a Choice Banded Ice Punch. A Choice Scarfed Heracross can Megahorn Latias before she does anything. The move Knock Off really hurts Latias, as Soul Dew is her key to success. However, it should be not much of a worry, as the only notable user of Knock Off is Deoxys-D, who is quite uncommon. |
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