Personally I dont see the point of giving your crobat extra bulk/leftovers and roost if you aren't running him with taunt and using him for stallbreaking. With 85/80/80 defenses he's not going to have staying power against anything but defensive pokemon, so may as well maximise attack and speed otherwise? He has a couple of good 4x resistances but they cant be relied on to defend you from most offensive pokemon.
I know stallbreaker crobat with high longevity is popular, but I wanted to try something else:
Crobat @ Focus Sash
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Speed / 4 Def
Jolly Nature
- Cross Poison
- Defog
- Hypnosis
- U-turn
By giving up the ability to extend his longevity, Crobat gains the ability to be an even better momentum shifter. Focus sash helps crobat stay alive for 2 turns, and with high speed and u-turn as well as spikes/toxspikes/earthquake/toxic immunities he can likely grab even more. With the fastest sleep + infiltrator combo paired with a focus sash Crobat can stop incredibly scary pokemon mid-sweep even when they are behind a substitute. With Hypnosis paired with u-turn, you can force their sweeper to switch out whilst also switching out and completely turning the momentum in your favour. Defog allows you to remove the spikes and toxspikes you are immune to for your teammates, as well as giving you a 80% accuracy hypnosis on the following turn. Unfortunately Brave Bird + focus sash is not really an option but Cross Poison is a reliable STAB attack and will be painful for the various grass type subseeders when paired with u-turn.
Other items could be used but I think Focus sash is somewhat mandatory if using something as unreliable as Hypnosis. Having 2 turns allows either 2 shots at hypnosis or the ability to defog -> hypnosis. And having the focus sash also allows to maximise attack instead of investing in bulk, something quite needed when being unable to use Brave Bird.
The other set I really liked the look of was a Choice Band set:
Crobat @ Choice Band
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Speed / 4 Def
Adamant/Jolly Nature
- Cross Poison
- Brave Bird
- Hypnosis
- U-turn
Now any subseeder or user of subpunch will be crying with the fear of being obliterated by a choice band brave bird. Similarly, all the fighting types with guts who might already be statused (and therefore immune to hypnosis) will also fear that flying STAB. Every virizion and breloom set is destroyed by this provided you don't get hit by spore- 4x effective attack through its substitute which can cancel focus punches as well as 4x resistances to both of its STABs is so cruel that I cant stop laughing. However crobat must avoid getting hit by the initial spore as well as stone edge on the switch ( i can imagine with low sweep gaining 5 damage that breloom will start taking stone edge instead).
Brave Bird also hits all the speed boosting baton passers who may try and use substitute for super effective, somewhat limiting the number of boosts they can build up before passing. Note that crobat will still outspeed adamant blaziken after 1 speed boost and that jolly blaz, scolipede and ninjask(who has higher speed to start with lol) all outspeed after 1.
Hypnosis is a good move for a choice band set because while you have to switch out after the hit, so do they. (Note the main move for this set is definitely not the hypnosis, however: it has good synergy with brave bird as mentioned above). Poison also got a new buff gaining new super effective coverage. Overall I think this crobat got a lot of buffs this generation even though not much seems to have changed. What do you guys think?
I know stallbreaker crobat with high longevity is popular, but I wanted to try something else:
Crobat @ Focus Sash
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Speed / 4 Def
Jolly Nature
- Cross Poison
- Defog
- Hypnosis
- U-turn
By giving up the ability to extend his longevity, Crobat gains the ability to be an even better momentum shifter. Focus sash helps crobat stay alive for 2 turns, and with high speed and u-turn as well as spikes/toxspikes/earthquake/toxic immunities he can likely grab even more. With the fastest sleep + infiltrator combo paired with a focus sash Crobat can stop incredibly scary pokemon mid-sweep even when they are behind a substitute. With Hypnosis paired with u-turn, you can force their sweeper to switch out whilst also switching out and completely turning the momentum in your favour. Defog allows you to remove the spikes and toxspikes you are immune to for your teammates, as well as giving you a 80% accuracy hypnosis on the following turn. Unfortunately Brave Bird + focus sash is not really an option but Cross Poison is a reliable STAB attack and will be painful for the various grass type subseeders when paired with u-turn.
Other items could be used but I think Focus sash is somewhat mandatory if using something as unreliable as Hypnosis. Having 2 turns allows either 2 shots at hypnosis or the ability to defog -> hypnosis. And having the focus sash also allows to maximise attack instead of investing in bulk, something quite needed when being unable to use Brave Bird.
The other set I really liked the look of was a Choice Band set:
Crobat @ Choice Band
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Speed / 4 Def
Adamant/Jolly Nature
- Cross Poison
- Brave Bird
- Hypnosis
- U-turn
Now any subseeder or user of subpunch will be crying with the fear of being obliterated by a choice band brave bird. Similarly, all the fighting types with guts who might already be statused (and therefore immune to hypnosis) will also fear that flying STAB. Every virizion and breloom set is destroyed by this provided you don't get hit by spore- 4x effective attack through its substitute which can cancel focus punches as well as 4x resistances to both of its STABs is so cruel that I cant stop laughing. However crobat must avoid getting hit by the initial spore as well as stone edge on the switch ( i can imagine with low sweep gaining 5 damage that breloom will start taking stone edge instead).
Brave Bird also hits all the speed boosting baton passers who may try and use substitute for super effective, somewhat limiting the number of boosts they can build up before passing. Note that crobat will still outspeed adamant blaziken after 1 speed boost and that jolly blaz, scolipede and ninjask(who has higher speed to start with lol) all outspeed after 1.
Hypnosis is a good move for a choice band set because while you have to switch out after the hit, so do they. (Note the main move for this set is definitely not the hypnosis, however: it has good synergy with brave bird as mentioned above). Poison also got a new buff gaining new super effective coverage. Overall I think this crobat got a lot of buffs this generation even though not much seems to have changed. What do you guys think?
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