This is a simple, yet very effective set. Put your primary counter to sleep with Hypnosis and once it's dead or sufficiently weakened, use Nasty Plot to boost Ninetales' rather modest Special Attack and commence sweeping with her STAB Fire attack, taking out Waters and Rocks along the way with Energy Ball. Leftovers helps recover HP lost from switch-in damage and at the very least nullifies the effects of Hail and Sandstorm. Life Orb gives her a little extra kick, if you don't mind 10% HP drop. Finally, you can use Wide Lens to boost the accuracy of Hypnosis and Fire Blast.
This set is not as offensively threatening as the previous set, but it's very useful nonetheless. Sleep an opponent and hit physical attackers with a burn. Similar to the common Rapidash in many ways, but Ninetales isn't as worried by Water types as her equine counterpart is.
Overheat and Fire Blast both provide very powerful hits with Choice Specs, while your other attacks provide type coverage. Energy Ball covers most Water types and Rocks, Extrasensory is mostly for Tentacruel, who can soak up Energy Ball thanks to it's neutrality to Grass and high Special Defense, Dark Pulse helps against special walls such as Hypno and Grumpig. Hidden Power selection depends on what you find most troublesome. Ice kills off Dragons, Water helps against Fire types and Electric is mostly for Water/Flying types, like Mantine. While many of her fellow Fire types are more powerful with this type of set, Ninetales has the advantage of being able to carry both a Grass move (that isn't SolarBeam) and an Ice or Electric attack—something only Magmortar (Hidden Power Grass and Thunderbolt) and Infernape (Hidden Power Ice and Grass Knot) can boast. Other OptionsGrudge can be helpful to let a team member set up if you can strip away all the PP of an opponent's main attacking move. For example, you can deprive Suicune of Surf or remove all of Blissey's Seismic Tosses. Confuse Ray and Safeguard are also available, but are poor choices when compared to her other options. EVsTimid nature, max Speed and Special Attack. OpinionDP brought Ninetales a vast improvement to her movepool, when compared to ADV. The most notable additions are Nasty Plot and Energy Ball, both of which help to make her a decent special sweeper. The benefits Ninetales had previously are still there, namely her good Speed and ability to sleep her opponents with Hypnosis, which received a welcome 10% boost in accuracy. While she may be a little off the standard required to compete against some of the more powerful threats (although she can acquit herself in OU in a pinch), she is a very effective sweeper in the lower tiers. CountersAltaria walls her unless she has Hidden Power Ice and with Natural Cure, switching into status isn't a problem. Ninetales also has a hard time getting past Mantine's high Special Defense and can easily fall to Surf. Camerupt does well, but repeated hits from the Choice Specs set can wear him down. Most other Fire types wall Ninetales, Typhlosion with Earthquake does a good job here. Hypno fares well and can switch into Hypnosis, thanks to Insomnia and can set up Light Screen or threaten to status Ninetales with Hypnosis or Thunder Wave. Grumpig works in similar way to Hypno, but trades the sleep immunity for a Fire resist. Both need to watch for Dark Pulse on the Choice Specs set. If you're using Ninetales in OU, then Blissey, Snorlax, Garchomp, Salamence, Heatran, and Infernape (amongst others) all take care of her with relative ease. |
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