[OVERVIEW]
- Boasts an incredible attack stat with above average defenses which can make druddigon either an offensive or defensive pokemon.
- Has access to a wide move pool which can benefit by providing coverage towards threats such as fairys but needs support to do so effectively.
- Receives support moves such as stealth rock, glare, and roar
- Low speed makes it get out speed by most of the tier and revenge killed but recieves sucker punch to pick off faster and weakened pokemon.
- Doesnt have the best matchup against the tiers hazard removers such as flygon.
- Lack of recovery injures druddigon's bulky sweeping potential
- Presence of fairys such as granbull and diancie can effect druddigons current position
- Really weak to common ice types such as sneasel, mega glalie, and abomasnow
[SET]
name: Support
move 1: Glare
move 2: Stealth rock
move 3: Dragon Tail/Dragon Claw
move 4: Fire Punch
item: Rocky Helmet/Leftovers
ability: Rough Skin
nature: Impish
evs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
========
- Glare is the best choice of status druddigon recieves, paralyzing opposing pokemon to cripple their speed and allow druddigon and other teammates to have a better chance against them during the battle.
- Stealth rock is the main hazard on the set and allows to cripple opposing team's mons by taking chip damage and breaking potential sashes and sturdys.
- Dragon Tail is your main stab which allows for decent damage but phases the opponent which can allow for good damage if coupled with hazards. Alternatively if dragon tail's low damage and the negative priority annoys you, dragon claw can be used.
- Fire Punch is used to hit steel types that would otherwise tank dragon tail such as escavalier and registeel.
Set Details
========
- Max HP and Max defense with an impish nature allows druddigon to tank physical hits rather well and allow it to gain chip damage via rough skin. Max defense avoids an OHKO from hitmonlee, medicham, and +2 fletchinder after rocks, and can sustain minimum damage from physical attackers. Alternately you can use a special defense spread of 252 HP / 4 Def/ 252 SpD which allows druddigon to take special attacks better and take advantage of its fire and electric resistances, such pokemon including jolteon and delphox.
- Rocky Helmet is useful to get more chip damage against physical attackers coupled with rough skin. Leftovers gives druddigon chip revcovery that can be very beneficial in battle and can work better with a spd spread.
- Rough Skin is the choice of ability to couple it with its defensive evs to get off some useful chip damage.
Usage Tips
========
- Lead with druddigon to get up your rocks up, if against a threatening mon, you may have to switch multiple times to get up your rocks. Also be cautious when leading as the opponent may predict you and possibly force a switch out.
- Always switch out if druddigon is in ko range against fairy and ice type pokemon.
- Spread paralysis to weaken and slow down the opponent while also phazing them.
- Keep druddigon healthy to be able to have a good switch towards physical attackers, but primarily resisted attacks.
- Dont play recklessly with this set, identity certain pokemon that may be threatening and use that to your advantage with glare.
- This set is very helpful on bulky offensive and balance teams as these teams carry slow powerhouses and the support from paralysis is very useful for them.
- Druddigon should be preserved until opposing hazard remover is taken care off for druddigon to freely set up hazards.
Team Options
========
- Spikes support is always useful to rack up a hazard stack to cripple the opponents team and can be effective with dragon tail, so pokemon such as mega glalie, qwilfish, accelgor, and garbodor is always recommended.
- Wish and cleric support is always useful to help out druddigons lack of recovery and inflicted status, alomomola, diancie, and aromatisse are good users of the move.
- Hard hitting pokemon are recommended to take advantage of the spread of paralysis druddigon provides towards the opponent, pokemon such as hoopa, hitmonlee, escavalier, and rhyperior are good examples of this.
- Pokemon that can handle fairy types are very useful to avoid threatening druddigon, some examples are venusaur, magneton, and escavalier.
- Hoopa is a great spinblocker to prevent pokemon such as blastoise and hitmontop remove your set up hazards. This combination can be useful towards preventing flygon from defoging as it doesnt appreciate druddigons paralysis or its dragon stab.
[SET]
name: All Out Attacker
move 1: Outrage/Dragon Claw
move 2: Sucker Punch
move 3: Fire Punch
move 4: Iron Tail/Gunk Shot
item: Life Orb
ability: Sheer Force
nature: Adamant
evs: 224 HP / 252 Atk / 32 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
========
- Outrage or Dragon Claw is the main stab, outrage is used for more power but unfortunately lands in confusion effect and can be locked in when can make the opponent easier to handle druddigon, while dragon claw has no drawbacks but is much weaker.
- Sucker Punch is used as priority and can help revenge kill fast, weak pokemon and can hit psychic types super effectively like delphox and hoopa.
- Fire Punch is used as coverage against steel types that can wall druddigon like registeel and escavalier.
- Gunk Shot is used for coverage against fairy types like aromatisse and granbull, it can also hit grass pokemon harder like tangrowth. You can also use Iron Tail instead which still handles fairys, primarly for OHKO'ing diancie, but can also 2ko Rhyperior .
Set Details
========
- 252 attack evs with an adamant nature maximizes druddigon's attack stat and allow it to hit as hard as possible. 32 Speed evs is used to outspeed base 50 speed pokemon like registeel, tangrowth, and diancie, and outspeed max speed mega camerupt. The rest of the evs is dumped in hp to give druddigon some much deserved bulk.
- Life orb is accompanied to boost up druddigons already hard hitting attacks and doesnt lose any recoil on its coverage moves thanks to sheer force.
- Sheer force is used to give druddigons attack some more power while getting rid of their side effects. This can be paired up with life orb to receive more damage while not taking recoil.
Usage Tips
========
- Druddigon should be used as a wallbreaker coupled with sheer force and life orb and it can scare and limit the opponents choice of play.
- Use certain situations to your advantage to allow druddigon to come into the battle field, some such are choice locked pokemon, safe switch ins to certain mons like tangrowth, and using aggressive doubling if you have to.
- Use Sucker punch against weakened pokemon to potentially ohko them and faster pokemon to give off some damage.
- Druddigon should avoid ice type pokemon as the most used ones are able to ohko or majorly damage druddigon.
- Do not lock yourself into outrage early game as it can be easily revenge killed.
- Druddigon should be be very cautious against scald users such slowking and seismatoad as a potential burn can severely cripple druddigons attack stat, though it may be fine if they are in KO range.
- Thanks to druddigons bulk, it is able to tank a fairy attack from defensive fairys and strike back with a gunk shot or iron tail.
- Leftovers should primarily be used on SpD spread due to the lack of focus of physical attacks.
Team Options
========
- Druddigon can be best paired up with escavalier which resists all of its weaknesses of ice, dragon, and fairy, while druddigon resists escavaliers weakness of fire. Escavalier can handle fairy types and can use knock off to criple bulky walls such as alomomola, jellicent, and eviolite users which allows druddigon to threaten physical walls and creates a good defensive and offensive synergy between these two.
- Wish users such as alomomola and aromatisse are great to support druddigon for its lack of recovery.
- Trick room users such as diancie and slowking are great users of the move and allow druddigon to outspeed and pressure most fast mons.
- Hazard removal users such as blastoise and flygon can allow druddigon to safely switch in without the need of hazard damage. Blastoise can lure in grass and electric types which can allow for druddigon to come in and deal with them.
- Volt Switch and U-turn users are good for allowing druddigon to come in safely and possibly check or counter the opposing foe.
- Sweepers really appreciate druddigons wallbreaking potential towards weakening fat mons that would otherwise be troublesome, so virizion, sneasel, aerodactyl, and jolteon are good partners.
- Flygon can make a great double dragon core as flygon can carry momentum with u-turn and send out druddigon on the battle field, while druddigon can take care of fairys and grass types.
[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
=============
Druddigon is able to use many alternative coverage moves. On the life orb and assault vest sets, aqua tail can be optimized to handle rhyperior and mega camerupt more effectively. Crunch provides more coverage against psychic and ghost users, but comes at the cost of using sucker punch which gains priority. Thunder punch is a more effective way in dealing with bulky water types such as alomomola and blastoise, and can be used on certain eviolite users, mainly golbat and togetic. Although with the cost of coverage, Substitute can be used on life orb and support sets to offer protection of status and damage which can give druddigon a free opportunity to attack. If your team already provides rocks, druddigon's support set can receive resttalk to make up for its lack of recovery. Sleep talk doesn't need to be provided if your team already has a cleric such as aromatisse or diancie.
Checks and Counters
===================
- **Bulky Water types**: Pokemon such as alomomola and jellicent can safely switch into most of druddigons attacks and be able to spread status. Jellicent may also be troublesome for the defensive set as most of them carry taunt. They are also able to pivot out of outrage as most are coupled with fairy types such as diancie or granbull.
- **Fairy Types**: Pokemon such as granbull, togetic, aromatisse, and diancie are easily allowed to switch into any druddigon set that lacks gunk shot or iron tai, thought they must be careful as most fairy types cant OHKO druddigon due to their defensive prescene and lack of offensive investment.
- **Steel types**: Registeel, escavalier, bronzong, and steelix resist druddigons STAB, but they must be careful for druddigon sets with fire punch.
- **Ice types**: Though risky, ice type pokemon can switch into druddigon and threaten it with one of its stabs. You can also sacrifice one of your team members so that it can come in and KO druddigon. It does come at the cost as most ice pokemon cant switch into most of druddigons moves, hate paralysis from the support set, and can be caught off guard by a predicted fire punch.
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