Thanks for the check! Looks like you caught some good stuff, too, so I'll slap a stamp on it.
GP Check 1/2
GP Check 1/2
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Excadrill (Analysis)
- Thread starter Rising_Dusk
- Start date
Edits/Additions
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I give a round of applause to Rising_Dusk for writing the analysis of arguably the best Pokemon in Pokemon Black and White. Also, please don't use "basically." It disrupts the flow of the analysis.
Removals
Comments
[Overview]
<p>Excadrill is a legend amongst the Pokemon introduced in BW, and is infamous for its ideally distributed stats and unbelievable sweeping potential in a sandstorm. Hitting a raw Speed stat of 604 in a sandstorm with no setup whatsoever, Excadrill outspeeds Deoxys-S and even base 130 Speed Pokemon with a Choice Scarf. It's absurd to think that it gets even better than that, but for example, access to Rapid Spin makes Excadrill an even better offensive Rapid Spinner than even Starmie, D/P/Pt's premier offensive Rapid Spinner, ever was. You'd also think that such an offensive Pokemon would be very frail, but no, in fact, Excadrill has enough bulk to avoid being OHKOed by pretty much any neutral attack, and has a typing that affords it numerous resistances to take advantage of and key immunities to Thunder Wave and poison damage. After you look at all of Excadrill's seemingly boundless strengths, it's no wonder why it's atop everyone's threat list this generation.</p>
<p>Excadrill is a phenomenal Pokemon, and the only reason it isn't banned is because there still exist Pokemon that can beat it and Excadrill still has weaknesses that can be exploited. Powerful priority, such as Mach Punch from Conkeldurr or Aqua Jet from Azumarill, tears Excadrill down. Also, one of the biggest issues with Excadrill is that Drought Ninetales and Drizzle Politoed exist. If the weather isn't favorable for Excadrill in Excadrill's favor, a huge list of Pokemon crop up as checks and counters to it. Furthermore, while Excadrill's type coverage is spectacular, its three move coverage almost always leaves it vulnerable to something, such as Bronzong when lacking X-Scissor. These things come together to make Excadrill more balanced than you might be led to believe, but nonetheless it remains as one of the most threatening Pokemon that exist in OU.</p>
An excellent overview.
[SET]
name: Swords Dance
move 1: Swords Dance
move 2: Earthquake
move 3: Rock Slide
move 4: Return / Rapid Spin / X-Scissor X-Scissor / Rapid Spin
item: Air Balloon / Life Orb
ability: Sand Rush
nature: Jolly / Adamant
evs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>Excadrill is an insanely powerful sweeper that can cleave teams in half if they lack one of the few adequate checks to him, and give proper support sometimes even if they do if Excadrill is properly supported. Base 135 Attack coupled with base 88 Speed and Sand Rush, which doubles Speed in a sandstorm, makes Excadrill the monster we know him as. Swords Dance was made for a Pokemon like this, and after a single boost, Excadrill's Attack hits 738 or 810 with a Jolly and Adamant nature, respectively.</p>
<p>The truth is that Excadrill's attacking movepool isn't overflowing with options, but it has all of the right moves in all of the right places to get the job done. Earthquake is Excadrill's main STAB attack, and it is so powerful after a boost that even Pokemon that resist it aren't completely safe. Rock Slide is used alongside Earthquake for great neutral coverage against a myriad of threats myriad threats. In the last slot, Excadrill has a lot of very good options to choose from. Return is the most popular, as it hits Pokemon like Rotom-W, Gliscor, and Landorus the hardest of all available options. Rapid Spin is also a very effective tool for that last slot, however, if you're not looking for added coverage. It's no joke to claim that Excadrill is the best Rapid Spinner that exists, especially considering that no Ghost-type will switch in for fear of a powerful attack. Lastly, X-Scissor is a good choice for hitting Bronzong for neutral damage and annihilating Grass-, Psychic-, and Dark-types after a boost.</p>
[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
<p>The EV spread is standard for an offensive sweeper. It might not make much sense to run max Speed and a Jolly nature with Sand Rush boosting Excadrill's Speed, but more often than not, you'll be facing down an opposing Excadrill and have to risk the Speed tie. Adamant is still an option, however, as it adds considerable punch to Excadrill's attacks, especially after a boost. Adamant is also exceptional when run with Air Balloon, since it prevents opposing Excadrill from hitting your Excadrill super effectively if kept intact. Speaking of Air Balloon, it's the primary option for Excadrill's item because many Pokemon cannot do significant damage to Excadrill without first popping it. Gliscor, for instance, risks allowing Excadrill to set up a second Swords Dance if it first has to pop Excadrill's Air Balloon with a weak Ice Fang or other attack. Life Orb is still an exceptional item, however, as it allows Excadrill to annihilate Pokemon and sweep very easily with just one boost. Leftovers is also a useful item when running Rapid Spin to keep Excadrill around longer, though even in that case, Air Balloon tends to be more valuable. Chople Berry is also a good item to consider, as many teams rely on Mach Punch from the likes of Conkeldurr to beat Excadrill. Lastly, despite hopefully being obvious, Sand Rush is the best ability on Excadrill. Sand Force is a great ability and all, but just doesn't make up for the fact that Excadrill really wants to outspeed nigh-everything in the game. It should also be noted that Landorus does a better job at abusing Sand Force.</p>
<p>The first thing you should always bring in your team when using Excadrill is something a Pokemon with Sand Stream. The best Pokemon for this job is Tyranitar, as it can be tailored to beat many Pokemon that hinder Excadrill, including such as Gliscor and Skarmory with Ice Beam and Fire Blast, respectively, paving the way for an Excadrill sweep. Hippowdon is also a good choice, as it can tank physical hits extremely well and check opposing Excadrill. Running Hippowdon over Tyranitar also makes Adamant Excadrill more workable, since you have a solid check to opposing Excadrill. If running Rapid Spin, Excadrill partners particularly well with Pokemon such as Thundurus and Volcarona. Both of these Pokemon can switch into typical attacks aimed at Excadrill and annihilate its checks to allow for an eventual sweep. In general, it's also good to pair up Excadrill with another powerful Ground-type sweeper like Landorus or Garchomp, as one of them can sufficiently weaken their mutual counters and enable an Excadrill sweep or vice versa.</p>
Some of the grammar used was a bit weird, but Excadrill is perfectly described.
[SET]
name: Choice Band
move 1: Earthquake
move 2: Rock Slide
move 3: Return
move 4: X-Scissor
item: Choice Band
ability: Sand Rush
nature: Jolly / Adamant
evs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>Sometimes, Excadrill just doesn't get the opportunity to set up a Swords Dance, and so would much rather hit really hard off the bat instead. Choice Band gives Excadrill that power, and actually helps it so much that it can immediately threaten some Pokemon that might otherwise check it very effectively, such as Hippowdon. By giving up a setup move, Excadrill is able to run its optimal four move coverage in Earthquake, Rock Slide, Return, and X-Scissor. Nothing in the game resists all of these moves, and many Pokemon are outright 2HKOed with the appropriate one.</p>
[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
<p>There's never any reason for Excadrill to run any EV spread other than 252 Attack and 252 Speed. The little bulk given by investing slightly in HP and removing some from Speed is never worth the chance of losing a Speed tie to opposing Excadrill. Jolly is the primary nature choice to at worst speed tie opposing Excadrill, though with a Choice Band boosting Excadrill's Attack stat, Adamant becomes an even more attractive alternative. Sand Throw, unsurprisingly, is the ability of choice for the Speed boost. As appealing as Sand Force might be for the bonus damage, it's not as excellent as the raw Speed that Sand Throw offers.</p>
<p>When running Choice Band Excadrill, it's imperative to run it alongside other Ground-type sweepers such as Landorus and Garchomp. One of the biggest lures of the immediate power of a Choice Band is to soften up Pokemon like Bronzong, Gliscor, Hippowdon, and Gyarados for one of your other sweepers to break through later. Also, when using Excadrill, don't forget to pack either Tyranitar or a Hippowdon of your own to set up a sandstorm. Choice Band Excadrill also appreciates Spikes and Stealth Rock a lot, since checks like Gyarados and Hippowdon will be easily 2HKOed with the appropriate move after they take enough residual damage. Skarmory is usually the better choice for setting up Spikes despite the fact that it doubles up on Excadrill's Fire-type weakness since it will also lure Electric-type attacks for Excadrill to switch in against.</p>
CB Excadrill is actually a cool option. I couldn't find much to edit.
[Other Options]
<p>There's a good reason why Excadrill is forced to use moves like Return and X-Scissor for coverage, and that's because Excadrill has virtually no other attacking moves worth using over the stated options. Brick Break can be run as a coverage move to nail opposing Excadrill that are floating on an Air Balloon, but otherwise has basically no utility; basically everything else vulnerable to Brick Break, namely Tyranitar and Ferrothorn, are hit equally hard by Earthquake. Shadow Claw might sound nice to hit Ghost-types that are immune to Rapid Spin, but a neutral Earthquake hits all Ghost-type Pokemon in the game except for Rotom and Gengar for the same Base Power as Shadow Claw. Additionally, both Rotom and Gengar are easily dispatched of with a boosted Rock Slide. Excadrill can run Hone Claws over Swords Dance for setting up so that Rock Slide will never miss, though this is basically always inferior to just chancing Rock Slide's accuracy with a Swords Dance boost.</p>
[Checks and Counters]
<p>Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, there is quite a substantial list of Pokemon that adequately check Excadrill. Bronzong and Skarmory are the best of the best, though, as nothing Excadrill can do will seriously hurt them even after a Swords Dance boost. Skarmory can't really do anything back to Excadrill other than break its Air Balloon with Brave Bird and then Whirlwind it away, though, and Bronzong needs to be mindful of a boosted X-Scissor. Gliscor is another spectacular switch-in to Excadrill and can break Excadrill's Air Balloon with Ice Fang, though with Poison Heal lacks Roost and so can be worn down over a match if not careful. Hippowdon is another solid check, though can be beaten by repeated boosted Earthquakes if Excadrill has its Air Balloon intact.</p>
<p>Outside of the aforementioned bulky Ground- and Steel-types, Pokemon with an Air Balloon of their own intact and a resistance to coverage moves can beat Excadrill. A good example of this is Air Balloon Heatran, which can OHKO Excadrill with Fire Blast while taking moderate damage from its coverage moves.. When nothing else works, an Excadrill of your own may force the opposing Excadrill into a Speed tie that can potentially save you the match. Lastly, anything that changes weather away from sandstorm will nullify Excadrill's ability and make it much easier to check with faster Pokemon packing super effective moves.</p>
<p>As a final note, it's worth having at least two reasonable checks to Excadrill on your team. It's very likely that Excadrill is paired up with fellow Ground-types Landorus or Garchomp to beat through their mutual checks. If you only have one of these checks and Excadrill sufficiently weakens it, it's likely that you will be at risk of being swept by the second-string Ground-type sweeper.</p>
[Dream World]
<p>Mold Breaker, while amazing with Ground-type STAB for hitting Pokemon with Levitate or that are using an Air Balloon, is very nearly useless compared to Sand Rush on Excadrill. In practice, Excadrill relies on its immense and incomparable Speed stat to beat many Pokemon that would otherwise stop him cold, always making Mold Breaker an inferior ability by comparison.</p>
<p>Excadrill is a legend amongst the Pokemon introduced in BW, and is infamous for its ideally distributed stats and unbelievable sweeping potential in a sandstorm. Hitting a raw Speed stat of 604 in a sandstorm with no setup whatsoever, Excadrill outspeeds Deoxys-S and even base 130 Speed Pokemon with a Choice Scarf. It's absurd to think that it gets even better than that, but for example, access to Rapid Spin makes Excadrill an even better offensive Rapid Spinner than even Starmie, D/P/Pt's premier offensive Rapid Spinner, ever was. You'd also think that such an offensive Pokemon would be very frail, but no, in fact, Excadrill has enough bulk to avoid being OHKOed by pretty much any neutral attack, and has a typing that affords it numerous resistances to take advantage of and key immunities to Thunder Wave and poison damage. After you look at all of Excadrill's seemingly boundless strengths, it's no wonder why it's atop everyone's threat list this generation.</p>
<p>Excadrill is a phenomenal Pokemon, and the only reason it isn't banned is because there still exist Pokemon that can beat it and Excadrill still has weaknesses that can be exploited. Powerful priority, such as Mach Punch from Conkeldurr or Aqua Jet from Azumarill, tears Excadrill down. Also, one of the biggest issues with Excadrill is that Drought Ninetales and Drizzle Politoed exist. If the weather isn't favorable for Excadrill in Excadrill's favor, a huge list of Pokemon crop up as checks and counters to it. Furthermore, while Excadrill's type coverage is spectacular, its three move coverage almost always leaves it vulnerable to something, such as Bronzong when lacking X-Scissor. These things come together to make Excadrill more balanced than you might be led to believe, but nonetheless it remains as one of the most threatening Pokemon that exist in OU.</p>
An excellent overview.
[SET]
name: Swords Dance
move 1: Swords Dance
move 2: Earthquake
move 3: Rock Slide
move 4: Return / Rapid Spin / X-Scissor X-Scissor / Rapid Spin
item: Air Balloon / Life Orb
ability: Sand Rush
nature: Jolly / Adamant
evs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>Excadrill is an insanely powerful sweeper that can cleave teams in half if they lack one of the few adequate checks to him, and give proper support sometimes even if they do if Excadrill is properly supported. Base 135 Attack coupled with base 88 Speed and Sand Rush, which doubles Speed in a sandstorm, makes Excadrill the monster we know him as. Swords Dance was made for a Pokemon like this, and after a single boost, Excadrill's Attack hits 738 or 810 with a Jolly and Adamant nature, respectively.</p>
<p>The truth is that Excadrill's attacking movepool isn't overflowing with options, but it has all of the right moves in all of the right places to get the job done. Earthquake is Excadrill's main STAB attack, and it is so powerful after a boost that even Pokemon that resist it aren't completely safe. Rock Slide is used alongside Earthquake for great neutral coverage against a myriad of threats myriad threats. In the last slot, Excadrill has a lot of very good options to choose from. Return is the most popular, as it hits Pokemon like Rotom-W, Gliscor, and Landorus the hardest of all available options. Rapid Spin is also a very effective tool for that last slot, however, if you're not looking for added coverage. It's no joke to claim that Excadrill is the best Rapid Spinner that exists, especially considering that no Ghost-type will switch in for fear of a powerful attack. Lastly, X-Scissor is a good choice for hitting Bronzong for neutral damage and annihilating Grass-, Psychic-, and Dark-types after a boost.</p>
[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
<p>The EV spread is standard for an offensive sweeper. It might not make much sense to run max Speed and a Jolly nature with Sand Rush boosting Excadrill's Speed, but more often than not, you'll be facing down an opposing Excadrill and have to risk the Speed tie. Adamant is still an option, however, as it adds considerable punch to Excadrill's attacks, especially after a boost. Adamant is also exceptional when run with Air Balloon, since it prevents opposing Excadrill from hitting your Excadrill super effectively if kept intact. Speaking of Air Balloon, it's the primary option for Excadrill's item because many Pokemon cannot do significant damage to Excadrill without first popping it. Gliscor, for instance, risks allowing Excadrill to set up a second Swords Dance if it first has to pop Excadrill's Air Balloon with a weak Ice Fang or other attack. Life Orb is still an exceptional item, however, as it allows Excadrill to annihilate Pokemon and sweep very easily with just one boost. Leftovers is also a useful item when running Rapid Spin to keep Excadrill around longer, though even in that case, Air Balloon tends to be more valuable. Chople Berry is also a good item to consider, as many teams rely on Mach Punch from the likes of Conkeldurr to beat Excadrill. Lastly, despite hopefully being obvious, Sand Rush is the best ability on Excadrill. Sand Force is a great ability and all, but just doesn't make up for the fact that Excadrill really wants to outspeed nigh-everything in the game. It should also be noted that Landorus does a better job at abusing Sand Force.</p>
<p>The first thing you should always bring in your team when using Excadrill is something a Pokemon with Sand Stream. The best Pokemon for this job is Tyranitar, as it can be tailored to beat many Pokemon that hinder Excadrill, including such as Gliscor and Skarmory with Ice Beam and Fire Blast, respectively, paving the way for an Excadrill sweep. Hippowdon is also a good choice, as it can tank physical hits extremely well and check opposing Excadrill. Running Hippowdon over Tyranitar also makes Adamant Excadrill more workable, since you have a solid check to opposing Excadrill. If running Rapid Spin, Excadrill partners particularly well with Pokemon such as Thundurus and Volcarona. Both of these Pokemon can switch into typical attacks aimed at Excadrill and annihilate its checks to allow for an eventual sweep. In general, it's also good to pair up Excadrill with another powerful Ground-type sweeper like Landorus or Garchomp, as one of them can sufficiently weaken their mutual counters and enable an Excadrill sweep or vice versa.</p>
Some of the grammar used was a bit weird, but Excadrill is perfectly described.
[SET]
name: Choice Band
move 1: Earthquake
move 2: Rock Slide
move 3: Return
move 4: X-Scissor
item: Choice Band
ability: Sand Rush
nature: Jolly / Adamant
evs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>Sometimes, Excadrill just doesn't get the opportunity to set up a Swords Dance, and so would much rather hit really hard off the bat instead. Choice Band gives Excadrill that power, and actually helps it so much that it can immediately threaten some Pokemon that might otherwise check it very effectively, such as Hippowdon. By giving up a setup move, Excadrill is able to run its optimal four move coverage in Earthquake, Rock Slide, Return, and X-Scissor. Nothing in the game resists all of these moves, and many Pokemon are outright 2HKOed with the appropriate one.</p>
[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
<p>There's never any reason for Excadrill to run any EV spread other than 252 Attack and 252 Speed. The little bulk given by investing slightly in HP and removing some from Speed is never worth the chance of losing a Speed tie to opposing Excadrill. Jolly is the primary nature choice to at worst speed tie opposing Excadrill, though with a Choice Band boosting Excadrill's Attack stat, Adamant becomes an even more attractive alternative. Sand Throw, unsurprisingly, is the ability of choice for the Speed boost. As appealing as Sand Force might be for the bonus damage, it's not as excellent as the raw Speed that Sand Throw offers.</p>
<p>When running Choice Band Excadrill, it's imperative to run it alongside other Ground-type sweepers such as Landorus and Garchomp. One of the biggest lures of the immediate power of a Choice Band is to soften up Pokemon like Bronzong, Gliscor, Hippowdon, and Gyarados for one of your other sweepers to break through later. Also, when using Excadrill, don't forget to pack either Tyranitar or a Hippowdon of your own to set up a sandstorm. Choice Band Excadrill also appreciates Spikes and Stealth Rock a lot, since checks like Gyarados and Hippowdon will be easily 2HKOed with the appropriate move after they take enough residual damage. Skarmory is usually the better choice for setting up Spikes despite the fact that it doubles up on Excadrill's Fire-type weakness since it will also lure Electric-type attacks for Excadrill to switch in against.</p>
CB Excadrill is actually a cool option. I couldn't find much to edit.
[Other Options]
<p>There's a good reason why Excadrill is forced to use moves like Return and X-Scissor for coverage, and that's because Excadrill has virtually no other attacking moves worth using over the stated options. Brick Break can be run as a coverage move to nail opposing Excadrill that are floating on an Air Balloon, but otherwise has basically no utility; basically everything else vulnerable to Brick Break, namely Tyranitar and Ferrothorn, are hit equally hard by Earthquake. Shadow Claw might sound nice to hit Ghost-types that are immune to Rapid Spin, but a neutral Earthquake hits all Ghost-type Pokemon in the game except for Rotom and Gengar for the same Base Power as Shadow Claw. Additionally, both Rotom and Gengar are easily dispatched of with a boosted Rock Slide. Excadrill can run Hone Claws over Swords Dance for setting up so that Rock Slide will never miss, though this is basically always inferior to just chancing Rock Slide's accuracy with a Swords Dance boost.</p>
[Checks and Counters]
<p>Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, there is quite a substantial list of Pokemon that adequately check Excadrill. Bronzong and Skarmory are the best of the best, though, as nothing Excadrill can do will seriously hurt them even after a Swords Dance boost. Skarmory can't really do anything back to Excadrill other than break its Air Balloon with Brave Bird and then Whirlwind it away, though, and Bronzong needs to be mindful of a boosted X-Scissor. Gliscor is another spectacular switch-in to Excadrill and can break Excadrill's Air Balloon with Ice Fang, though with Poison Heal lacks Roost and so can be worn down over a match if not careful. Hippowdon is another solid check, though can be beaten by repeated boosted Earthquakes if Excadrill has its Air Balloon intact.</p>
<p>Outside of the aforementioned bulky Ground- and Steel-types, Pokemon with an Air Balloon of their own intact and a resistance to coverage moves can beat Excadrill. A good example of this is Air Balloon Heatran, which can OHKO Excadrill with Fire Blast while taking moderate damage from its coverage moves.. When nothing else works, an Excadrill of your own may force the opposing Excadrill into a Speed tie that can potentially save you the match. Lastly, anything that changes weather away from sandstorm will nullify Excadrill's ability and make it much easier to check with faster Pokemon packing super effective moves.</p>
<p>As a final note, it's worth having at least two reasonable checks to Excadrill on your team. It's very likely that Excadrill is paired up with fellow Ground-types Landorus or Garchomp to beat through their mutual checks. If you only have one of these checks and Excadrill sufficiently weakens it, it's likely that you will be at risk of being swept by the second-string Ground-type sweeper.</p>
[Dream World]
<p>Mold Breaker, while amazing with Ground-type STAB for hitting Pokemon with Levitate or that are using an Air Balloon, is very nearly useless compared to Sand Rush on Excadrill. In practice, Excadrill relies on its immense and incomparable Speed stat to beat many Pokemon that would otherwise stop him cold, always making Mold Breaker an inferior ability by comparison.</p>
I give a round of applause to Rising_Dusk for writing the analysis of arguably the best Pokemon in Pokemon Black and White. Also, please don't use "basically." It disrupts the flow of the analysis.
Thanks, I've implemented most of your check. Some of your changes altered the style of the writing, which I'm not really keen on, but otherwise you had some great suggestions. Also, you asked me to reverse the order of two slashed moves on the SD set, which I won't do because that's something only QC can ask for, and they approved it as-is. Cheers.
Awesome, thanks for that. With this all fixed up, I'm marking this as done!
why is there no rapid spin mention on here?
If you'd actually read the whole analysis, you'd see Rapid Spin on the Swords Dancer. Mentioned more than ten times, actually.
Im sorry I posted this before reading the whole thing. I still think rapid spin is in general a good move on him that is a good option on almost any set.
Come March 30th DW is open, so i had an idea for another check for Excadrill. I think that a ditto with its new ability, imposter, with a choice scarf could work on Excadrill, Transform can also copy the opponents stat levels, so if Excadrill SDs, ditto would also get the +2. Excadrill is also weak to ground, the only thing that might stop ditto would be a air balloon. The only thing im not sure about is if transform copies the ability.
Ditto most likely won't be released due to it's ability to give breedable offspring their Dream World ability, so we won't see it for quite a while, and it won't kill Excadrill anytime soon.
EDIT: anyways, you're better off commenting on this in the Excadrill thread in Dragon Spiral Tower.
EDIT: anyways, you're better off commenting on this in the Excadrill thread in Dragon Spiral Tower.
I haven't looked too much into the whole dream world thing since it isn't out yet, but if ditto can actually do that, then an imposter ditto would be hard to find anyways. Sounded like a great idea, i was looking forward to messing up salamence and revenge killing with a ditto :|
That sort of thing won't be included in the analysis unless released, and since Ditto has not been released anywhere yet, that pretty much kills that.
This is a bit late, but SDS and I agreed that Adamant rather than Jolly should be the primary nature on both sets. Jolly's only use is attempting to outrace enemy Excadrill, which is relatively minor and speed creep-ish, anyway.
I agree with you, so I've changed that in the writeup.
I'm really not looking forward to dealing with this dude and/or having to make one.
Magnezone@balloon with HP Fire is worth mentioning as a specific counter IMO. Such an update would warrent changing this line (though still not reason to use brick break, esp considering the two mentioned are still hit hard by x-scissor if THEY run a balloon, which only t-tar would ever do)
Hm... I'm a bit new to this, but I have a few questions to ask about goign against Excadrill.
Would a defensive Vaporeon be good? Will it even be able to survive a single Earthquake?
And does Azumarills Aqua Jet OHKO this thing.
I ask because the darn thing manages to clean out my entire team. The only time I've ever KOd it is by stalling for 20 moves with a Power-Shared Shuckle that kept wrapping repeatedly. And I don't think my foe is going to fall for that trick again.
Would a defensive Vaporeon be good? Will it even be able to survive a single Earthquake?
And does Azumarills Aqua Jet OHKO this thing.
I ask because the darn thing manages to clean out my entire team. The only time I've ever KOd it is by stalling for 20 moves with a Power-Shared Shuckle that kept wrapping repeatedly. And I don't think my foe is going to fall for that trick again.
Vaporeon isn't a good Exca counter. It usually goes down to a +2 Earthquake and it can't even OHKO a full HP Excadrill with surf.
Azumarill doesn't OHKO it iirc, or at the very least not all the time unless its choice banded. Which makes it obvious what Azu you are when you switch in so they'll just switch in to something appropriate to take out Azu.
If you want true Exca counters try bulky fighting type pokemon like Conkeldurr.
Azumarill doesn't OHKO it iirc, or at the very least not all the time unless its choice banded. Which makes it obvious what Azu you are when you switch in so they'll just switch in to something appropriate to take out Azu.
If you want true Exca counters try bulky fighting type pokemon like Conkeldurr.
Really. Oh. I'll go with the Choice Banded Azumarill then. I'll run on the assumption that my opponent hasn't read on it.
EDIT: Actually, Azumarill will survive even a Choicebanded Earthquake (providing either Health or Defence get Max EVs/IVs).
I did some calculations and found that, at the very least, Azumarill can survive any attack from a non-Choice banded one (fortunately, my opponent put leftovers on it). It's a good thing that he has a team of about 4 Ground/Rock types.
Thanks for the info (and there's no way I'm ever using Conkeldurr. A Bidoof looks less ugly than that thing).
I'd like to ask (and sorry if this has already been brought up before): what about Mold Breaker as used in a non-Sandstorm team? Would it have enough utility in that kind of scenario to warrant consideration as a possible competitive option? Or would it just get shut down instantly due to the lack of extra speed?
Just need to know for sure, as I'm in the middle of breeding a Drilbur to use in my team. I don't want to shut out the possibility of using one with the Dream World ability if there's a chance it can actually be useful outside of Sandstorm, since that condition is so vital to Rushdrill.
Just need to know for sure, as I'm in the middle of breeding a Drilbur to use in my team. I don't want to shut out the possibility of using one with the Dream World ability if there's a chance it can actually be useful outside of Sandstorm, since that condition is so vital to Rushdrill.
Okay, then. I wasn't expecting to make a Sandstorm team when I was initially looking at making Excadrill one of my main fighters, but eh. I can deal with that, ultimately, since Tyranitar and Garchomp are awesome.
Thanks for the input!
Thanks for the input!
@Zya Excadrill doesn't get Stone Edge. Best rock type move it gets is rock slide. Just saying.
All the same Exca might have some warrant without Sand Rush but to be honest when Sand Rush just works better 90% of the time I'm a bit skewed to say Sand Rush is just the better option on any Exca set.
All the same Exca might have some warrant without Sand Rush but to be honest when Sand Rush just works better 90% of the time I'm a bit skewed to say Sand Rush is just the better option on any Exca set.
If you're not using Sand Rush and not using Excadrill in a sandstorm with it, then you are using the wrong Pokemon on your team. Garchomp, for instance, is far and above better than Excadrill in nearly every relevant way if you aren't using Sand Rush.