This is what Ninjask was used for in Advance, and it has changed little. Substitute repeatedly until you've built up enough Speed Boosts, then get the hell out of there. Swords Dance can be used if you've got the time to make something like Marowak or Rampardos even more scary. X-Scissor beats up Psychics so you can use Ninjask to prevent Alakazam or Azelf from sweeping your team, and if you manage to scrape a Swords Dance you can OHKO Tyranitar. Aerial Ace is great for Heracross, which these EVs allow you to outspeed even if he has max Speed and Choice Scarf (though not Jolly natured ones).
Same concept as above, except with Thief over Swords Dance. Ninjask rarely has time to Swords Dance, but it oh so often has issues with being Whirlwinded by that annoying, annoying Skarmory. Thanks to Shed Shell, he can escape from your Magnezone at will, so he can wall you for eternity. Thief solves this: nab his Shed Shell so Skarmory knows what it is to fear magnets again. If your opponent doesn't have Skarmory you can always use it to steal something else. As long as it isn't a Choice Scarf it will probably come in handy. Stealing Leftovers from an alternative Hazer or phazer like Weezing or Suicune can help you wear them down.
This set is bordering on novel, but has its specific uses. The idea is that if you lead with this, you will always get at least a Speed Boost in, and usually a Swords Dance as well. If you lead against Tyranitar, Hippowdon or Abomasnow, use Sunny Day first while you get maimed with some kind of attack that would KO you. Sunny Day will clear the skies, leaving happy Ninjask sitting at 1HP with a Speed Boost. Get the hell out of there with a quick Baton Pass, hopefully letting your recipient do some cleaning work. If you're not facing anything keen on changing the weather, just Swords Dance first. If your opponent switches out of Ninjask on turn 1, you will either get your stat boosts erased, or become able to get in a secondary Swords Dance, which is neat. If Sunny Day is not for you, fill it in with the obvious Thief, Protect or whatever. This set works pretty well with Heatran, though it's a shame he can't do much with the Swords Dances.
Ninjask makes an excellent finisher for several Pokémon, most notably these pesky Psychic and Fighting-types. Thanks to max Speed he'll even outspeed things like Choice Scarf Azelf. If you've read other analyses before, you would've noticed most Choice Band/Choice Specs sets recommend Choice Scarf as an alternative. But Ninjask, who is faster than Team Rocket AND the speed of light, obviously doesn't need that. Speaking of needing, Ninjask needed a better physical movepool. There's two Bug moves in here, as his best other option is Return, which is simply not very good. U-turn scouts opponents (hopefully ones you can trap with Magnezone or Dugtrio in the wings), X-scissor provides "sweeping" STAB (in other words, you use it when you want a Bug move that doesn't force you to switch out) and Night Slash is mostly for Gengar.
If you can scare your opponents with Ninjask so that he switches out (which Ninjask does pretty well on its own since its face is not pretty), you can get in your Swords Dance, and try to sweep a little from there. Obviously, Ninjask can only really sweep in a world of Sharpedo, Azelf and Jynx switching in, but let's dream on a little here and forget about all these sturdy Rock, Ground, Steel or Water Pokémon with moves that make Ninjask do a "SPLUT" sound within seconds. Just for a moment. Baton Pass is there if you live in a real world and want to get your Swords Dances to someone else (making this essentially the first set with two attacking moves instead of Substitute), Sunny Day for reasons explained in the Focus Sash set, and Thief for reasons explained in the Thief set. Life Orb helps if you want to make Ninjask go down like a ton of bricks. Or if you want to make him do more damage, of course. Focus Sash or the option of not carrying anything should not need to be explained by now. Other OptionsThis is where you ask: "where's Roost? Roost is on Life Orb sets and Swords Dancer sets a lot!" I am in no way inclined to put Roost on something with 61 HP, 45 Defense and 50 Special Defense, especially when using Roost basically means giving up the only really useful thing about his typing (namely an Earthquake immunity). Putting Roost on Ninjask would be equivalent to putting it on a wet paper bag. If you're in the mood for pushing Ninjask's luck you could try Sand-Attack, which helps on Baton Pass chains, especially since it makes Stone Edge miss more than it already does. Screech could work with Stealth Rock or Spikes down, but Swords Dance is better in most situations. That about sums it up for Ninjask. If anything, feel free to put any of his viable attacking moves anywhere on the first set. Protect is good if you don't want to cut your health with Substitute, but as the description says, it fails when used in succession. At least it helps against multi-hit moves and gets him Leftovers recovery though. Pinch berries make a good alternative to whatever item is listed as long as it's not the focus (no pun intended) of the set. Starf Berry can help Pokémon out depending on what you get: Attack to any physical sweeper, Special Attack to any Special one, Defense to Snorlax for easy Cursing, or to Heracross so he lives through Dugtrio, or Special Defense for Suicune or Skarmory. Liechi or Petaya will do if you feel like playing it safe. EVsThe EVs listed on most sets let him outpace Choice Scarf Adamant Heracross, as well as Swift Swim Kingdra without Speed EVs. That's about all you need unless you go max. More HP helps for better Substitutes to pass on, Defense and Special Defense might save him sometimes, but usually won't. Attack should usually be maxed because whenever Ninjask needs to attack, he needs all power he can get. More Speed helps for various Choice Scarf Pokémon, Dragon Dancers, Reversal/Flail users or other Salac Berry users, or anything that boosts its Speed, really. Make sure Ninjask's HP is odd so he doesn't roll over and die after two hits from Stealth Rock. OpinionNinjask is quick at everything. Quick at doing his job, but quick at dying horribly too. He makes a great finisher, he is one of the most reliable Baton Passers in the game if you aren't met by a phazer, he can pull upsets a lot of the time, but he dies quicker than an emo investigating a knife connection. Substitute helps him fight that—usually Ninjask should be Baton Passing out before he's hit with a final blow anyway. Stealth Rock greatly limits Ninjask beyond the earlygame, especially in conjunction with Sand Stream. He works best as a lead. He's arguably one of the best ways of exploiting the fact that you manage to get Skarmory out of your way or the fact that your opponent has nothing with Whirlwind, Haze or Roar anyway. He's got a lot of competition as a Speed and Attack Baton Passer though, what with Gliscor and Scizor both being good Pokémon that can actually take a hit. To sum it up, Ninjask is a lot of hit-or-miss, may require some support to work, but when he works he tends to allow other dangerous Pokémon like Rampardos, Marowak, Heracross, etc to completely harass opponents into submission. Stealth Rock and Trick Room are unwelcome changes, but for the most part Ninjask is very usable. CountersA good counter to Ninjask would be "poke it gently" because that's about how quickly he dies. However, since Substitute and Baton Pass tend to let no one touch him, you must resort to other methods. A good start is laying down Stealth Rock, which will cost him 50% health right off the bat. Sand Stream will nerf him further. Skarmory, Suicune, Hippowdon and anything else with Roar/Whirlwind can negate his stat-upping, though these three are the best at taking hits. Weezing and to a lesser extent Vaporeon or anything else with Haze will do as well, but Ninjask will still be able to pass Substitutes, which on its own is deadly. Priority moves that bypass Ninjask's insane Speed will put a great hurting, but if he survives with more than 25% health he can still get in a Substitute. Fake Out prevents that, so if you can Fake Out Ninjask, you should do so. Extremespeed, Aqua Jet, Quick Attack, Shadow Sneak, Bullet Punch, etc, they all work, whereas Ice Shard is your very best bet and Mach Punch your worst. Arcanine does pretty well against Ninjask with Intimidate, Extremespeed and Fire moves, and he can also Roar if you want him to. Trick Room makes Ninjask a counterproductive Pokémon. Psych Up works to a lesser extent—your Psych Upper may not be able to live up against a boosted Ninjask or whoever he passes to, especially since most Pokémon with Psych Up tend to be Psychic. Multi-hit moves that break Ninjask's Substitute can be a nasty surprise for him if he decides to stay in. Rock Blast is obviously the best move for the job—just pray it hits, and Ninjask will go down. Fury Swipes Slaking or something similar works as well. |
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