Vespiquen
[Overview]
<p>Here we have her, the queen amongst the RU kings: Vespiquen. Vespiquen is a solid Pokemon, boasting great bulk, access to Roost, and decent offensive stats for a defensive Pokemon. She also has useful resistances to Grass-, Fighting-, and Bug-type moves, and an immunity to Ground-type moves. While all of these signs point to an amazing defensive asset, Vespiquen has horrible drawbacks. She is weak to the common Electric-, Ice-, and Fire-type moves in the tier, coupled with a crippling 4x weakness to Stealth Rock and other common Rock-type moves. To make matters worse, Vespiquen's low Speed stat hinders her defensive capabilities, as several Pokemon she should be able to check outspeed her. Fortunately, the light of fortune shines down on Vespiquen. Most Electric-, Ice-type, and Fire-type moves are special oriented, meaning she can take weaker hits with ease, and access to a great offensive move in Attack Order means she isn't complete Taunt bait. With her great defenses, numerous resistances, Roost, Pressure, Toxic, Substitute, and Attack Order, Vespiquen will make walls bow down to her in fear; she is the queen of the RU tier.</p>
[SET]
name: Specially Defensive
move 1: Roost
move 2: Substitute
move 3: Toxic
move 4: Attack Order
item: Leftovers
ability: Pressure
nature: Careful
evs: 248 HP / 176 SpD / 84 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>With her great defenses, useful resistances, and Bug-type STAB, Vespiquen can counter and check various threats in the tier, most notably Slowking and Crygonal. Vespiqueen is able to stall out the opponent in various ways, using a combination of Roost, Substitute, Toxic, and Pressure. Vespiqueen can either whittle away at the opponents HP, or stall out the PP of its moves. The process is fairly simple. Let Vespiquen come in on a weak or resisted move, and set up Substitute as the opponent switches or tries to status her. Vespiqueen can then either hit the opponent with Toxic, or Roost off any damage taken. In the last slot, Attack Order is used, giving Vespiquen an attacking option as insurance against Taunt users. Attack Order is a great, high powered STAB move, helping Vespiquen out against Pokemon such as Slowking and Cryogonal, by aiming at their lower Defense stats. The higher critical hit-ratio is just an added bonus.</p>
[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
<p>Aerial Ace is a useful secondary STAB move to use with Attack Order, as it can hit Bug- and Fighting-types super effectively. The listed EVs let Vespiquen switch into Stealth Rock twice before going down. The Speed EVs let her outpace up to minimum Base 50 Speed Pokemon, such as Tangrowth, Lickilicky, Dusknoir, and Slowking, and set up Substitute before they can status her. The remaining EVs goes into Special Defense to help Vespiquen take special hits better from Pokemon such as Crygonal, Slowking, and Sceptile. A physically defensive EV spread with a Bold or Impish nature is an option, using Hidden Power Flying or Aerial Ace over Attack Order as Vespiquen's main STAB. This set can be used to check and KO most Fighting- and Bug-types. However, most Fighting-types carry hard-hitting Rock-type moves, which makes this a less favorable option, as they can easily KO Vespiquen. Rapid Spin support is essential, since Vespiquen has a crippling weakness to Stealth Rock. Claydol and Crygonal are both good options, resisting at least one type that Vespiquen is weak to. Claydol resists Stealth Rock, and is able to hit Rock-type Pokemon hard with its STAB Ground-type moves. Claydol's Defense can also balance up with Vespiquen's Special Defense, making Claydol the slightly superior option.</p>
<p>Though Vespiquen can handle most types of Pokemon, there's still some that give her trouble. Fire-, Flying-, Rock-, Poison-, and Steel-types are this set's biggest counters. Fire-, Flying-, and Rock-types, such as Entei, Swellow, and Aggron, resist Vespiquen's Attack Order, and can easily outspeed and KO Vespiquen with their often physical STAB moves. Slowking and Poliwrath can beats most Fire-types; Slowking is perfectly capable of defeating specially oriented threats, such as Moltres and Typhlosion, while Poliwrath easily handles Entei. Steelix has no trouble with Flying- and Rock-types, such as Swellow and Aggron, and can easily KO both with Gyro Ball and Earthquake, respectively. It should also be noted that, as with Claydol, Poliwrath's and Steelix's Defense balances out Vespiquen's Special Defense. Manetric and Aggron can also handle most Flying-types. Poison- and Steel-types are even bigger trouble for Vespiquen, as she can barely touch them. They resist Attack Order and are immune to Toxic, making PP stall the only way out for Vespiquen. Steel-types also resists Vespiquen's Flying-type moves. Again, Poliwrath and Slowking have no trouble with Steel-types, while hard-hitting Fire-types, such as Moltres and Entei, are good options as well. Steelix and Dugtrio are both good options to deal with most Poison-types. Dugtrio is faster, while Steelix has the defenses to survive their assaults and an immunity to their STAB moves. Both can KO Poison-types with their STAB Earthquakes.</p>
[Other Options]
<p>There's not much else Vespiquen can do, but she has some support options to choose from. Confuse Ray can be used, but is generally unreliable. Vespiquen also has access to Sunny Day and Rain Dance, meaning she can provide weather support. Vespiquen benefits most from rain herself, as it reduces the power of the Fire-type moves that threaten her. Vespiquen also has two stat boosting moves in Defend Order and Hone Claws. With Defend Order, she can buff up her defenses even more, while Hone Claws boosts Vespiquen's decent Attack stat. Vespiquen is too slow for Hone Claws to work properly; however, this can be taken advantage of in Trick Room. Struggle Bug is a rather weak move, but will lower the opponent's Special Attack, which can be beneficial in Vespiquen's attempts at countering certain opponents. Vespiquen's Special Attack stat is equal to its Attack stat, so it can use some special moves to success, besides the already mentioned Hidden Power Flying. Signal Beam is Vespiquen's best special Bug-type STAB, but is much weaker than Attack Order. Power Gem is Vespiquen's best option against Flying-types, while Hidden Power Ground lets her hit Steel- and Poison-types for super effective damage.</p>
[Checks and Counters]
<p>Aggron resists Attack Order, is immune to Toxic, and hits super hard with Head Smash, easily OHKOing Vespiquen. Steelix is in a similar situation, but it can't do any major damage outside of Stone Edge. Archeops is another good Rock-type option, as it resists Attack Order and can easily KO Vespiquen with either Rock Slide, Stone Edge, or Acrobatics. Honchkrow and Swellow are always faster, and will aim a lethal Brave Bird at Vespiquen's often lower Defense stat. Hard-hitting Fire-types, such as Moltres, Entei, and Tyhplosion, will hit Vespiquen for serious damage. Entei is the most notable Fire-type counter, as it usually utilizes physical moves, such as Flare Blitz and Stone Edge. Galvantula and Manectric are faster Electric-types that have enough power to break through Vespiquen's Special Defense with their super effective STAB moves. Weezing easily stops the above, and this applies to most Poison-types, as long as they can either stall Vespiquen out or KO her quickly. If the Poison-type Pokemon doesn't resist Attack Order, it will have a harder time. Victreebel and Amoongus are examples of this, but Victreebel can KO Vespiquen with Weather Ball.</p>
[Dream World]
<p>Vespiquen receives Unnerve as her Dream World ability. Unnerve is a rather useless ability, especially when compared to Pressure. However, Unnerve can see some competitive light when the pinch Berries are released, though Pressure is much better overall.</p>
