Arcanine (Analysis)



http://www.serebii.net/pokedex-bw/059.shtml

[Overview]

<p>Arcanine has a wide and diverse movepool, backed by solid stats across the board. With high power STAB moves such as Flare Blitz and Fire Blast and strong priority in ExtremeSpeed, backed by 110 base Atk and 100 base SpA, Arcanine has some very meaningful offensive power. Arcanine also has access to useful support moves such as Will-O-Wisp and Roar, and a form of (albeit often unreliable) recovery in Morning Sun, these are backed by relatively sturdy defenses of 90 / 80 / 80 and a reasonable 95 base speed. Unfortunately for Arcanine, it faces stiff OU competition from the likes of Blaziken and Infernape, both of whom are faster, possess STAB fighting attacks and are only neutral to Stealth Rock, qualities Arcanine wishes it had.</p>

[SET]
name: Choice Band
move 1: Flare Blitz
move 2: ExtremeSpeed
move 3: Close Combat
move 4: Wild Charge
item: Choice Band
ability: Intimidate
nature: Jolly / Adamant
evs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>Arcanine's high base power moves and reasonable Atk stat coupled with strong priority lend themselves very well to a Choice Band set, and powerful priority in ExtremeSpeed and the extra power of Wild Charge over ThunderPunch allows it to differentiate itself from Blaziken and Infernape.

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

<p>Residual damage and recoil wear Arcanine down very quickly, so Wish Support is greatly appreciated, and Spinner support is almost mandatory, as Arcanine relies on switching in and out. Running Jolly allows Arcanine to outpace neutral natured base 108s such as the musketeers, but Adamant will give you a little more power, most usefully on ExtremeSpeed. Good scouting is essential, as all of Arcanine's attacking moves have at least one Pokemon in OU that is immune to them, so without proper prediction, its very easy to give free switch ins to dangerous pokemon like Doryuuzu and Heatran. Crunch is an option to hit Latios and Latias, but has difficulty finding a free move slot, as all the other moves are essential to the sets success. Nevertheless, it remains on option if your team has real difficulty dealing with them.</p>

[SET]
Name: Life Orb (Mixed)
move 1: Fire Blast
move 2: Close Combat
move 3: Wild Bolt
move 4: Crunch / Morning Sun
item: Life Orb
ability: Intimidate
nature: Rash
evs: 148 Atk / 124 SpA / 236 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>Running Life Orb on Arcanine with a mixed movepool allows it to function as a fairly effective mixed wallbreaker. Fire Blast provides a strong STAB option and will be the move you use most often. The other moves allow you to KO the most common specially defensive pokemons. Jellicent takes 46.53% - 54.95% from Wild Bolt, a 2KO with entry hazards, and both Evolution Stone Chansey and Leftovers Blissey, both 252 / 252 Bold, are easily 2KOed by Close Combat. Finally, Crunch allows Arcanine to 2KO both Latios and Latias, whilst Morning Sun gives Arcanine some form of Recovery. Although this is greatly neutered by sand, with Arcanine packing Close Combat Tyranitar shouldn't be switching in, and it gives Arcanine some survivability as otherwise it will kill itself fast. Arcanine also has enough speed to outpace Base 80s with a speed boosting nature.

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
<p>Residual damage will really wear Arcanine down, so rapid spin and wish support is highly recommended. A purely physical version of this set could be run, with 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe, and Flare Blitz, but killing yourself in two turns with your STAB move is not enjoyable and will really limit the effectiveness of Arcanine. Unlike the Choice Band set, this does not allow Pokemon to freely come in and set up, as Arcanine can now switch moves.

[Team Options]

As already mentioned, Arcanine greatly appreciates wish support to keep it healthy. Latias is a great choice for providing this, as it can come in on all except Arcanine's rock weakness, and Arcanine can switch in on Ice attacks aimed at Latias. Alomomola is also a good choice, as it resists water and will pass larger wishes due to its greater HP stat. Another interesting option is Xatu, who can switch in on Arcanine's Ground weakness and also deters entry hazards from going up. If you are not running Espeon or Xatu to deter hazards, it is recommended that you run a Rapid Spinner to remove them, Starmie and Tentacruel have the best synergy with Arcanine. Arcanine does a good job at blowing rather large holes in an opponents team, so running a Pokemon that can really take advantage of those is a good option. In particular, pokemon with a speed boosting move such as Rock Polish Terrakion pair very well with Arcanine.

[Optional Changes]

Arcanine can run a speed boosting set with either Flare Blitz or Fire Blast, Close Combat, Wild Charge and Nitro Charge or Agility, but this is generally outclassed by Blaziken, who gets the same speed boosts for free. Arcanine's reasonable bulk, and access to Will-O-Wisp and intimidate allow him to run a fairly bulky physical tank moveset, and Roar allows him to phase in an emergancy. If you really need more priority, you can run ExtremeSpeed on the life orb set, but it lacks the power to use it to its greatest effect. Its possible to run Arcanine as on offensive Fire type on Sun teams, but this role is mostly overshadowed by Blaziken and Charizard.

[Counters]

Once Arcanine is in, it must be predicted around. Only the Lati twins resist Arcanine's triple coverage of Fire / Fighting / Electric, so anyone else switching in has to come in on the right move or take severe damage. Once in, strong water, fire or rock moves (none of which, unfortunately for Arcanine, are uncommon) can force it out. If you get Hazards up and keep them there, Arcanine will have a very difficult job, as it will wear itself ou rapidly.

[Dream World]

Justified is overall a poor ability, and should never be considered over Intimidate or Flash Fire.
 
From my point of view - Heatran pretty much outclassed Arcanine as a specially bulky Fire last gen OU, and still does now. The SpDef set works well in the lower tiers but simply isn't up to par in OU. Admittedly I haven't seen too much evidence either way and this is a presumption, but I honestly don't see the spdef dog being especially viable.

Instead, I'd add a plain old LO attacker set, possibly as the first set. However given the fact that it often relies a lot on Sun for its niche, putting it lower might be better, its up to you. Anyway, the effectiveness of a LO Flash Fire Flare Blitz/Extremespeed/CC/Morning Sun Arcanine is absolutely incredible. On a sun team it beats TTar and Heatran - two of your worst enemies - assists in revenging Blazikens and Volcaronas who have got out of hand, amongst other things - absorbs Fire attacks that would otherwise be denting even resists severely, and utilises the boost to decimate with Flare Blitz - and recovers off the extreme amount of recoil with a 66% healing Morning Sun. Out of Sun Wild Bolt or Crunch may be better options over Morning Sun, but inside of it Gyarados and Ghosts don't often give you much trouble. Essentially I really cannot understate how well this set has worked for me on Sun teams - the combination of priority, fire absorbtion and CC works wonders.
 
What about the defensive set focusing on Intimidate abuse? Works wonders with WoW. Remember, Heatran can't Intimidate.
 
How about a life orb set?

[SET]
Name: Life Orb
Move 1: Flare Blitz
Move 2: Morning Sun
Move 3: Extreme Speed
Move 4: Wild Bolt/Will-O-Wisp
Item: Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Adamant/Jolly
Evs: 252 Atk / 4SpD / 252 Spe or 120 HP / 152Atk / 236 Spe
 
Thanks for all the feedback guys, I was going to add the sets you mentioned (except the physically defensive one, but sounds interesting, so I will try it and get back to you). With regards to Arcanine verses Heatran as a specially defensive pokemon, some of the most dangerous special attackers in the metagame carry fighting moves (reuniclus, virizion, gengar, etc.) so not having the fighting weakness which Heatran has is a huge advantage for Arcanine.
 

jrrrrrrr

wubwubwub
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And for what it's worth, Arcanine himself can work on a sun team too, with double STAB Fire moves, Morning Sun and Solarbeam for Water-types. This also avoids the recoil issue presented by the other set.
 
Blaziken and Infernape get ThunderPunch. Arcanine's Wild Charge is what allows it to differentiate itself from them. The sentence is written correctly.
 

jrrrrrrr

wubwubwub
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My bad, I thought that it was talking about the power difference between Wild Charge and Arcanine's Thunder Fang. But I still think Solarbeam and/or an all out Sunny Day abuse set is worth a mention.
 

AccidentalGreed

Sweet and bitter as chocolate.
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Hey.

So I'd probably tone down the patronage for Arcanine in the Overview, even though the analysis is at the QC stage. In my opinion, the overview skims over Arcanine's positive qualities a bit much and doesn't quite deal with his negative ones, like weakness to Stealth Rock and competition with other sweepers, especially Blaziken and Infernape. You will have to particularly address both the fighting-type starters in the analysis and explain Arcanine's qualities over and under them.

Other than that, I do hope the analysis covers something good for my favorite dog. Using with with Ninetails doesn't quite fix the Stealth Rock issue.
 
The set comments of The Specially Defensive say the set is used to counter Sun teams, but they are relatively uncommon (and you're probably using Arcanine on your own Sun team, so why take away it's strong attacking power?). Also, is the set built and based on countering Venusaur or something? (with so many points on how to beat Venusaur)

The set seems to be unable to beat a lot of the major special attackers out there, such as Latios, Reuniclus, and Thundurus to name a few. This also gets walled by common pokemon like Tyranitar (who also strips away the sun and limits Morning Sun), Rotom-W, and any Dragon type, while you fail to do anything significant to these pokemon outside of status-ing them. At least with the choice band set you could smack anything hard with a Flare Blitz or use coverage moves to hit common checks (Close Combat on Tyranitar for example). So I'm not totally sure the set is viable, unless it does something really well that I'm missing.
 
No Life Orb set?

The reason I say this is because on the Choice Band set, for every move, there is a Pokemon immune to it, AKA free switch-in. (Flash Fire = Flare Blitz, Ghost-types = Close Combat/Extremespeed, Ground-types + Volt Absorb + Motor Drive + Lightningrod = Wild Charge) Life Orb allows switches between attacks, a very useful thing to have.
 
I agree, you could either rename the first set "offensive" and slash LO, or run a fully dedicated LO set with Flare Blitz / Extremespeed / Wild Charge / Morning Sun.
 
I don't like Flare Blitz's recoil on a Life Orb set, so Naive / Naughty and Fire Blast could really use a mention, especially if its played on a sun team (which you will if your using morning sun). Also, wild charge isn't surefire on a set like that, as Close Combat mauls Tyranitar and Heatran, which are just as common switch ins as Gyarados / Burugeru.
 
I don't like Flare Blitz's recoil on a Life Orb set, so Naive / Naughty and Fire Blast could really use a mention, especially if its played on a sun team (which you will if your using morning sun). Also, wild charge isn't surefire on a set like that, as Close Combat mauls Tyranitar and Heatran, which are just as common switch ins as Gyarados / Burugeru.
Agreed that Wild Volt isn't too great on Sun - but with Morning Sun at 66% healing LO and Flare Blitz recoil can fairly easily be healed off when you get the chance (he forces a reasonable amount of switches). I wouldn't discount LO entirely, but Expert Belt or Fire Blast are indeed options.
 

Bad Ass

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Remove the Special Defense set. Most of the special attackers either OHKO it, 2HKO it, or set up on it (Rotom-w, Latios, Reuniclus, etc). It's just not viable.

You should add a mixed set; Arcanine has two 120 BP STAB moves, and is working with 110/100/95 offenses -- why not use them? The proposed set is:

Arcanine (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 148 Atk / 124 SAtk / 236 Spd
Rash Nature (+SAtk, -SDef)
- Fire Blast
- Wild Charge
- Morning Sun
- Close Combat

The EVs beat +speed base 80s, 2HKO 252 HP / 252 Def Bold Jellicent, and have a sufficient amount of Special Attack so that Fire Blast will be stinging a lot. It also 2HKOs max HP Rotom-w after Stealth Rock and Leftovers with Close Combat. It's really deadly, having the great Fire / Electric coverage, with a Fighting move to boot. It's also easy to heal if Sand isn't up, since Tyranitar should be afraid to come in.

Make the changes and this is approved.
 

Bloo

Banned deucer.
Bad Ass and I discussed this on IRC and...

Remove Crunch as a slash on Choice Band Arcanine. Wild Bolt deserves to be the only option in the last slot, since it provides Arcanine with a reliable way of hitting Jellicent, Gyarados, and other such Water-types for some impressive damage. Crunch's only selling point is its ability to hit Psychic-types super effectively. Even then, Rankurusu, one of the most used Psychic-types in OU, is hit harder by Flare Blitz. Crunch is only useful for hitting Latias and Latios on the switch. That doesn't warrant a slash IMO; shift it down into Additional Comments. The electric coverage is essential!

I'm also agreeing with the removal of the Special Defensive set. I'm basically going to echo the sentiments of wilson46; you aren't going to like taking attacks from powerful special attackers like Rankurusu, Thundurus, Tornadus, Rotom-W, Latios, Latias, and so on. Arcanine is also weak to Stealth Rock, and is affected by sandstorm. Speaking of sandstorm, Tyranitar walls you and makes it harder for you to heal yourself with Morning Sun, seeing as it only restores 1/4th of your health in sand, as opposed to 2/3rds in sun.

Lastly, I'm supporting the addition of a Life Orb set. Having the option to freely switch moves is great on Arcanine. And, Morning Sun is cool on sun teams for healing off Life Orb and SR damage. Though, I wouldn't run Flare Blitz, since that will quickly take a toll on Arcanine's health considering LO + SR damage. Instead, I'd run something along the lines of:

[SET]
Name: Life Orb
move 1: Fire Blast
move 2: Close Combat
move 3: Wild Bolt
move 4: Morning Sun
item: Life Orb
ability: Intimidate
nature: Rash
evs: 148 Atk / 124 SpA / 236 Spe

The moveset is self-explanatory. You hit the following stats with the listed EVs: 293 Atk / 293 SpA / 285 Spe. You do 46.53% - 54.95% to Jellicent with Wild Bolt. So, with Stealth Rock down or a layer of Spikes down, it's possible that to 2HKO. Lastly, you can outpace +Speed base 80s.

Once the OP is cleaned up with some changes, you have my approval :)
 
Have cleaned up the op, removed SpDefensive set and added a Mixed life orb set. Have also greatly fleshed out the analysis. Thanks for all the help guys :)
 
Perhaps overheat over fireblast on the mix set. Overheat boasts more power and better accuracy and if your using it as a one time move for physical walls its great. But fire blast has the ability to hit again and again which is why fire blast is the main option. At the least mention it.
 
I don't think overheat is really a mention, Fire Blast isn't a one time move, its your STAB, and I don't think that the extra power on the first hit is worth the Sp atk drop ever on the life orb set.
 

Delta 2777

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  • Mention the competition CB Arcanine faces with CB Darmanitan; Intimidate and Extremespeed are helpful.
  • Mention Flare Blitz over Fire Blast in the AC of the mixed set. Flare Blitz hits harder in general and while the recoil isn't to fun, it is also more reliable and allows you to use a non-defense hindering nature. Oh, and you don't have to split Attack and SpAtk EVs, meaning stronger Extremespeed etc.
Looks good! QC Approved (1/3)
 

Bloo

Banned deucer.
Thanks for making the changes. Though, I don't know why you slashed Crunch with Morning Sun on the Mixed set Bad Ass and I proposed. Like I said in my previous post, Crunch really isn't offering you any added coverage, bar hitting Latios and Latias super effectively. The recovery Morning Sun provides is just too good to pass up when using LO Arcanine. If anything should be slashed with Morning Sun, it's ExtremeSpeed. Just mention Crunch in Additional Comments.

QC APPROVED (3/3)
 

Bloo

Banned deucer.
This has been QCed already; however, you haven't made the simple change that I suggested in my above post. This has been up since February, so I'd appreciate it if you could update your OP. Otherwise, I'll have to take this away due to inactivity.

Thanks.
 

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