[AG] Water Arceus [QC: 2/3]

Josh

=P
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[OVERVIEW]

A great defensive typing in pure Water-type leavin only 2 weaknesses, both of which are uncommon, makes Water Arceus one of the best support Arceus formes. Like every Arceus forme, Water Arceus has excellent bulk and an extremely expansive movepool. Water Arceus is very weak to status of all kind, especially Toxic, and it kind of struggles with 4MSS, because it wants Judgment as a much more powerful neutral move, but on the other hand without Ice Beam it is just setup bait for Mega Rayquaza and it can't touch Primal Groudon.

[SET]
name: Bulky Support
move 1: Toxic
move 2: Recover
move 3: Defog
move 4: Judgment / Ice Beam
item: Splash Plate
ability: Multitype
nature: Bold
evs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
========

Toxic wears down most foes, and provides very helpful passive damage considering Water Arceus has very little offensive presence. Recover lets Water Arceus stay around longer. Defog clears entry hazards from the field, providing team support. Judgment is Water Arceus' main STAB move, allowing it to hit most Pokemon decently hard even uninvested, and does a fair bit to Ho-Oh. Ice Beam is an alternative attacking option, allowing Water Arceus to actually damage Primal Groudon besides Toxic and do a significant account to Mega Rayquaza.

Set Details
========

Splash Plate is required for Water Arceus to become Water-type. 16 Speed EVs allows Water Arceus to outpace 252 Speed neutral natured Primal Groudon. 252 HP EVS, 240 Defense EVs, and a Bold nature make Water Arceus as bulky as possible on the physical side. Alternatively, running 218 Speed EVs and a Timid nature allows Water Arceus to outpace Mega Rayquaza and either wear it down with Toxic or deal a large amount of damage with Ice Beam. However, running this much Speed removes a lot of bulk so it is often not worth it.

Usage Tips
========

Spread Toxic as much as possible to wear down your opponents team and remove their Pokemon's longevity. However, if your opponent has a Magic Bounce user, don't spread Toxic too much until they faint because it cripples Water Arceus. Keep Water Arceus as healthy as possible, because it can get worn down quickly switching in to Stealth Rock repeatedly. If your opponent has a Ho-Oh it's especially important to keep Water Arceus healthy to check it throughout the match so it can repeatedly check it.

Team Options
========

Mega Sableye pairs well with Water Arceus because it can deflect status, as well as spread status of its own. It can also stomach quite a few physical attacks itself and help prevent Water Arceus from being overwhelmed. Ho-Oh appreciates Water Arceus removing Stealth Rock from the field for it, and in turn can check Darkrai fairly well. Primal Groudon has good synergy with Water Arceus, as it can come in on Thunder Primal Kyogre and Zekrom, and in turn Water Arceus can pivot into Primal Kyogre's Water- and Ice-type moves, and then Primal Groudon can come in on the Thunder. Water Arceus struggles to take down Steel-type Pokemon, so pairing it with something with super effective coverage on most Steel-types such as Mewtwo Mega X and Ho-Oh is very beneficial. Clerics such as Blissey and Diancie aid Water Arceus by healing its status, and in turn Water Arceus can eat physical attacks for Blissey. Ferrothorn can greatly aid Water Arceus because it easily switches in on Zekrom and Primal Kyogre, 2 of Water Arceus' biggest threats, as well as absorbs Toxic.


[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
=============

Forgoing Defog and opting to run both Judgment and Ice Beam is a viable alternative for teams that don't need hazards removed and/or rely on hazards of their own, but Water Arceus is still relatively passive and loses a lot of its utility. Will-O-Wisp can be used instead of Toxic to cripple physical attackers, but it is far, far slower at wearing down foes and can be healed off by bulky walls such as opposing Water Arceus.

Checks and Counters
===================

**Status**: All forms of status completely cripple Water Arceus. Toxic especially wears Water Arceus down extremely fast and puts it on a timer.

**Zekrom**: Zekrom easily OHKOes Water Arceus with Bolt Strike, and Substitute + Hone Claws variants can set up freely on Water Arceus lacking Ice Beam.

**Setup Sweepers**: Setup sweepers such as Swords Dance Primal Groudon and Geomancy Xerneas can quite often easily set up on Water Arceus and proceed to overwhelm it with their boosted power.

**Steel-types**: Steel-type Pokemon are immune to Toxic, meaning Water Arceus will have difficulty overcoming them. Steel Arceus can simply set up on Water Arceus, Ferrothorn can stack hazards as well as cripple it with Thunder Wave, and Dialga resists Judgment and has a neutrality to Ice Beam completely shutting Water Arceus down.

**Mega Gengar**: Mega Gengar traps and easily eliminates Water Arceus, if your opponent has a Mega Gengar it is difficult to even send Water Arceus in because one misprediction and it's gone.
 
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Chloe

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Overview:
- Mention its ability to efficiently Toxic-stall Primal Groudon, the current overview looks like it suffers against Primal Don a lot more than it benefits from it.

Team Options:
- Clerics such as Clefable and Blissey to remove status from Water Arceus.
- Ferrothorn to check Kyogre, take minimal damage from Zekrom (two of Water Arceus's largest threats) and also prevent Toxic on Water Arceus.

Checks and Counters:
252 Atk Choice Band Teravolt Zekrom Bolt Strike vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Arceus-Water: 452-534 (101.8 - 120.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
The only way this is outpacing and OHKOing if it's Jolly Band. I don't think outpacing is really relevant though, since Water Arceus can't do much unless it's running Will-O and Ice Beam doesn't do half in most scenarios.

Xerneas - Geomancy Xerneas has no trouble setting up on Water Arceus, and can OHKO with Thunder after the +2 Boost. on second thought this threatens everything its not rly relevant.

Swords Dance Primal Don - can set up on Water Arceus and overwhelm it.

QC 1/3, I honestly have spent half a hour looking for stuff; I can't find anything.
 
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MZ

And now for something completely different
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Overview
Last point doesn't really add anything or need to be there

Moves
Specify direct damage to Pdon, it can toxic stall but ice beam allows it to actually deal damage itself

Set Details
I think it's worth specifying that you don't really want a ton of speed+timid unless you're running ice beam because running speed just to toxic megaray is really a waste. Also I think it might be better for just speed to outpace Adamant ray? that leaves waterceus with much more bulk

Usage Tips
3/4 can be condensed, having them separately sounds odd

C&C
Since this is done by biggest to smallest threats, I have to question gengar being 2nd.
252 SpA Gengar Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Water: 133-157 (29.9 - 35.3%) -- 21.5% chance to 3HKO
And with Judgement to annoy perish trap plus non-offensive sets being kinda worse because they forfeit the right to beat darkrai... I'd rather put this last tbh
Thoughts about changing SD Pdon to just setup sweepers in general? I'm just thinking because there's multiple things that will break through, namely SD Pdon, Geoxern, NP Rai, and frustration ekiller
Also Latios/as are very good checks (even ice beam does like 25) and need a mention somewhere
2/3
 

DoW

formally Death on Wings
Just a few things I thought of when reading this:
It might be worth mentioning Dragon Arceus in the Overview, because tbh it does basically the same job and in some ways is better.
Roar might be worth a mention in OO as well, it's not exactly a great move but especially on more offensive teams the ability to phase stuff like m-ray, sd p-don or geoxern can be more useful than toxic stall.
 

baconbagon

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there's no doubt that dragon arceus is better than ice beam / defog / toxic / recover water arceus (unless in specific teambuilding situations), but overall water is definitely the superior form because it can take on mega diancie, always breaks ho-oh's substitutes, and doesn't instantly lose to draco meteor mega rayquaza. unfortunately to actually deal with all these pokemon it does need to be two attacks, so defog is kinda bad but hazard control is important. dragon arceus just performs the defog / one attack job better if you need to take on ho-oh (sort of), ray, and pdon at the same time

also phasing xern isn't exactly an important job for waterceus but oh well. roar is probably better if you're ice beam and can't break ho-oh's subs.
 

DoW

formally Death on Wings
there's no doubt that dragon arceus is better than ice beam / defog / toxic / recover water arceus (unless in specific teambuilding situations), but overall water is definitely the superior form because it can take on mega diancie, always breaks ho-oh's substitutes, and doesn't instantly lose to draco meteor mega rayquaza. unfortunately to actually deal with all these pokemon it does need to be two attacks, so defog is kinda bad but hazard control is important. dragon arceus just performs the defog / one attack job better if you need to take on ho-oh (sort of), ray, and pdon at the same time

also phasing xern isn't exactly an important job for waterceus but oh well. roar is probably better if you're ice beam and can't break ho-oh's subs.
Yeah I agree water arceus certainly has a niche over dragon, but they do very similar jobs nonetheless so I still think it'd be work mentioning somewhere in the analysis. I also agree that Roar isn't that great because of 4mss, but I think the ability to not be setup bait is big enough to deserve a spot in Other Options tbh.
 
Overview - Toxicstall beats all p don forms except swords dance (which is quite uncommon in AG). More so, you still rely heavily on toxicstall vs swords dance even while running ice beam and it isn't that big of an advantage vs p don. So the last line can be omitted.

Moves - Maybe mention how toxic phazes out almost all common rock setters, allowing waterceus to defog reliably when 1v1 against a rock setter.

Usage tips - Fast taunt users/setup sweepers make it difficult to defog and deal huge damage, so it should avoid switching in vs common taunt users like Yveltal, Darkrai, Mgar, Mewtwo etc. Defogging vs Mray should be avoided unless absolutely necessary (ice beam is still a 2hko after rocks and 2 d dance setups can break through waterceus after rocks damage)

Team Options - Mention how Msab gives Waterceus more breathing space and offensive pressure on your defogger is significantly reduced. Ho oh isn't a darkrai check, not when taunt usage is existent (especially if rai switches in on waterceus and prevents it from defogging). Since this set lacks a solid answer for most setup sweepers in the game, unaware users like quag/clef tend to be good partners. Clefable also soft checks rai and xerneas, two things likely to give Waterceus a headache, whereas counter quag hard checks e killers and counters Mray/double dance don (and almost anything that tries to spam SD/DD).

Other Options - Opting for Stealth Rock instead of defog gives Waterceus a versatile role and allows its placement to be justified in HO teams. However, running rocks makes roar mandatory, which calls for ditching toxic/recover. This way, it acts more as a bulky rocks lead and its longevity is drastically reduced. Although, running rocks and roar with the amount of bulk that it has allows it to set up rocks and roar out set up sweepers or to opt to toxic stall their relevance out of a game.

C&C - Zekrom does not OHKO Waterceus unless it is banded (or highest of rolls after rocks), which is a trash set considering its horrible speed tier. So that part can be left out.

Darkrai - Tanks judgment rather conveniently and gets easy subs. Can also run taunt and prevent defogging.
 
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Chloe

is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
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Overview - Toxicstall beats all p don forms except double dance (which is quite uncommon in AG). More so, you still rely heavily on toxicstall vs double dance even while running ice beam and it isn't that big of an advantage vs p don. So the last line can be omitted.
It's probably fair to say that any form of SD PDon isn't beaten as double dance isn't the only form of SD PDon and the speed boost isn't needed at all.
 

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