Nidoqueen (update) (3/3)
 

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[OVERVIEW]

• unique typing
• can check many of the premier physical attackers in the tiers
• above average bulk
• good support moves in toxic spikes, dragon tail, roar
• has roughly 112 special attack factoring in sheer force, making it not set up bait
• can run surprise offensive set
• gets fucked by psychic and ground types that are great in the tier.

[Set]
name: Support
move 1: Toxic Spikes
move 2: Earth Power
move 3: Flamethrower / Ice Beam
move 4: Dragon Tail / Roar
Item: Leftovers
ability: Sheer Force
nature: Bold
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def/4 SpD


[SET COMMENTS]

• good bulk with good defensive typing
• toxic spikes are cool for slowly wearing down opponents. good on stall teams
• earth power for reliable stab move with good damage
• flamethrower beats bronzong and roserade
• ice beam hits flygon who otherwise beats you
• Dragon Tail does damage while while phasing, but sub users such as mismagius and Cobalion make roar a viable option
• is great for walling mons such as heracross, crobat, hitmontop, slowbro, machamp and other things.

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

• can use stealth rock but illegal with sheer force, so must use with poison point. using physical moves is better when using poison point
• generally used on a stall team for its ability to set up and absorb toxic spikes
• hippopotas is cool because it lets you sand stall
• wish support from something like umbreon and togekiss is useful because it doesnt have recovery.
• a ground resist like bronzong is great to take hits that nidoqueen cannot take as well as set up stealth rock

[SET]
name: Special Attacker
move 1: Earth Power
move 2: Sludge Wave
move 3: Ice Beam
move 4: Fire Blast / Thunderbolt / Focus Blast
item: Life Orb
ability: Sheer Force
nature: Modest
evs: 240 HP / 216 SpA / 52 Spe


[SET COMMENTS]

• surpirse to most people expecting something bulky
• hits as hard as nidoking
  
• great type coverage hitting everything for neutral damage
• sheer force is a great boost to nidoqueens attacks
• earth power primary stab with superb coverage against many key mons such as darmanitan, victini, chandelure and rhyperior
  
• Sludge wave is stronger and is mainly used for rotom-h who would otherwise wall you. used despite bad type coverage
• ice beam hits flygon zapdos and other flying types.
• Fire Blast has a chance to OHKO Bronzong after Stealth rock and also a chance to OHKO roserade after sr.
  
• Thunderbolt hits water types like Milotic and blastoise who could easily hit you for good damage back. suicune also
• focus blast hits special walls like umbreon snorlax and clefable hard but its low power is offputting
• a lot bulkier than nidoking. can take many physical hits from mons like heracross and stoutland.
• can check cm raikou due to its inability to OHKO with +1 hp ice, while having only a small chance to 2hko at +0
• check to lo zapdos, who fails to OHKO with hp ice. shaymin fails to OHKO with earth power
• has the bulk to take a hit easily unlike nidoking
  

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

• evs made to give nidoqueen good bulk while still hitting hard. outspeeds 8 speed milotic
• optional ev spread of 176 HP / 216 SpA / 116 Spe to outspeed SpD Roserade and easily 2hko it before it gets 2 layers of spikes down
• hazard support is great from pokemon such as deoxys-d bronzong rhyperior frosslass and quilfish
• bronzong in particular can easily take anything aimed at nidoqueen.
• flamethrower over fireblast but is kinda weaker
• shadow ball to kill deo-d who is an annoying fucker! mismagius resists both your stabs so its useful for that too
• walled by things like umbreon deoxys-d and snorlax
• enjoys physical attackers like heracross are good to kill special walls.
• other good teammates are krookdile, Cobalion, weavile, darmanitan

[Other Options]

• taunt but too slow
• toxic but toxic spikes is better most of the time
• physical set but weak af
• counter but not that good

[Checks and Counters]

• powerful attackers like victini Shandera and Darmanitan can overpower Nidoqueen, but have trouble switching it.
• subcm raikou can set up on nidoqueen without roar
• roserade can set up on the defensive set or kill it with a lo leafstorm
• ground types like rhyperior and flygon beat it with super effective earthquakes
• deoxys-d, mew, azelf, and other great psychic types completely screw it over
• rotom-h can come in with impunity and hit it hard with overheat or keep momentum with volt switch. trick also beats it
• constantly causing nidoqueen to switch with hazards sucks for it because it has no recovery
• suicune and milotic can come in and destroy it
• togekiss can set up a nasty plot and air slash to death
• weavile sharpedo hit hard with STAB SE attacks that nidoqueen cannot take

Offensive set should be running enough speed to outrun min-speed milotic or max speed base 50s. Trying to outrun 8 speed Milotic is considered speed creep. Offensive set should also have Focus Blast slashed in alongside Fire Blast and Thunderbolt, it's nice for wrecking dedicated special walls like Snorlax / Umbreon / Clefable. Also mention Shadow Ball in AC for its good neutral coverage and ability to beat Deo-D, that annoying fucker.

added focus blast and shadow ball. personally i dont think outspeeding 8 speed milo is speed creep because the standard spread is 248 / 252 / 8

example would be cb ttar trying to outspeed skarm that is running enough evs to outspeed wobb (which is onsite)

other uses for shadow ball include: mismagius who resists both of your stabs

uh raikou isn't setting up on nidoqueen... at least i sure hope not

mention using eq on the standard set if you also have SR

this was so much work i can't believe you made me do it gonna recommend a contrib removal but qc approved 1/3 i guess

The OP should include more points as to what Nidoqueen has to offer as a special attacker over Nidoking because with the points listed, I'm seriously doubting its viability. It's advantages include a whopping 7 points of special attack over Nidoking and 'bulk' without an explanation of what it's intended to survive. The calc for Heracross' CB CC is still pretty ugly (43.4% - 50.9%) with no chance to speed tie, so unless the bulk can be put to practical use, we're essentially recommending a worse Nidoking.

After testing, I have decided that the optimal spread is 244 HP / 216 SpA / 48 Spe Modest. That extra HP really helps move a few KOs back with SR, and the power difference isn't too substantial (9 points of SpA, which makes it about as strong as Timid Nidoking).

Regarding your comparison, note that Nidoking is 2hko'd by Choice Scarf Heracross' Adamant Close Combat - you're not getting a speed tie on that. Nidoqueen checks scarf cross much better.

This set should be played like a P2 with lower defenses and lack of recover, but better typing, more speed, and stronger STAB moves. That is, Nidoqueen shouldn't be expected to take extremely strong hits on the switch - but it can almost always survive them once it's in safely. Its typing and bulk makes it one of the very few checks to LO Zapdos, and it can even beat HP Ice Raikou (Earth Power does 77% minimum to +1 SpD Raikou, and Nidoqueen only faces a slight chance of a 2hko from +0 HP Ice and never an ohko from +1 HP Ice). Nidoqueen is also nearly impossible to revenge with scarfers unless it's been weakened or unless they hit it with strong, STAB SE moves; even CS Victini can't KO with V-Create, and CS Flygon's Earthquake doesn't KO it after SR damage (and sometimes not after Spikes damage). And then there's Stoutland - Nidoqueen easily survives Return and KOs back with Focus Blast (or Sludge Wave after 2 SR switchins). These are not things that Nidoking can say.

Your point was certainly valid, though...these are all things the OP should cover.

Edit: Regarding speed creep, Milotic runs 8 speed because that's what it takes to outspeed neutral-natured base 50s. Nidoqueen shouldn't be trying to outrun the milotic set on-site - if we followed that philosophy, what if someone makes a Mesprit analysis in the future, looks at the Nidoqueen spread, and goes "let's run enough speed to get to 202 so we can outspeed offensive nidoqueen"? And what if someone revises Nidoqueen in the future and goes "let's get to 203 speed so we can outrun the Mesprit analysis on site" and so on. That is the definition of speed creep, and it was a problem last generation.

Flareblitz, while you're normally right, from what I understand there are some exceptions to the speed creep rule. Similar to 8 speed scizor, 8 speed milotic is one those benchmarks that has been so universally standard for so long that it is ok for analyses to refer to it. It would be speed creep if it was referring to almost any other pokemon, but it's ok for Milotic.

Rules are rules, no? Pokes only aim to outspeed maximum or minimum speed threats, or else it is considered speed creep right?

While I think an exception could be made there because of what Snunch said, you could bump it up to 76 Spe(uninvested base 85s like Suicune) or be a real smartass, bump it to 64 Spe and say it's to beat Modest Gorebyss because that's the closest thing I could find above 8 Spe Milotic. Use the latter at your own discretion lol, I personally would not do this and just go up to 76.

This is a justifiable cause for Nidoqueen as well, since she's 2HKOed by Aggron's Head Smash otherwise. At worst, she should be tying with Milotic, who doesn't threaten her anyway unless Nidoqueen is weakened. You'd want to phrase it in the analysis as 'outspeeding minimum Speed Milotic and Adamant Aggron'. Since you can't recommend a Speed creep, give the players at least this much information and Speed creep at your own discretion.

I've been using offensive Nidoqueen for the last few days and it is amazing. However, I've been running a bit more Speed (near max actually, but that's just because of my team's needs).

There are two Pokemon that I think are worthwhile to outspeed: SpD Roserade and bulky Xatu. According to the on-site analyses, SpD Roserade has a Speed stat of 216 and bulky Xatu has a Speed stat of 227.

It is very useful to outspeed Xatu because it commonly switches into Nidoqueen expecting Stealth Rock or Toxic Spikes. After it switches in, Nidoqueen can hit it with Ice Beam (71-84% to max/max +Xatu/107-125% to max HP Xatu). This will KO if it switched into Sludge Wave/Fire Blast/Ice Beam. You can then set up Spikes/SR with Deoxys-D or another Pokemon after Xatu is dead.

I often find myself leading with Nidoqueen (and doing 96% to Bronzong with Fire Blast!). Another common lead I come up against is SpD Roserade. Like Xatu and Bronzong, Roserade almost always stays in against Nidoqueen. You can outspeed and deal 80-94% with Fire Blast. If it stays in to use Spikes, you have yourself a very clean 2HKO (even with Ice Beam). I think in this metagame the ability to 2HKO before Roserade gets up another layer of Spikes is pretty important.

I don't expect you to make either of these Speeds (217/228) standard, but it would nice if they could get a mention in the comments. Even if you run 228 Speed, you still maintain more bulk than Nidoking running a similar set (about 20 extra SpD points).

If you're going to insist on running 52 speed you shouldn't take the EVs out of SpA because 216 SpA gets you an extra EV point. Drop the HP down instead. I agree with SJ in that you should be aiming to outrun Adamant Aggron only, though.

Also, I can see the merit of slightly faster EV spreads - mention them in AC and what they outrun, while also mentioning that it will severely compromise Nidoqueen's bulk.

im keeping the 52 speed evs because snunch says it should be kept. and being able to 2hko milotic without taking damage (assuming it switches in) is great.

im going to add the spread to beat roserade, but i personally didnt like the idea of losing that much bulk to beat xatu, who doesnt realy do much to nidoqueen besides sit there.

and thanks for the check chou, time to hopefully write this up quickly depending on how much work i have in school

edit: man im messing up damage calcs so much lately 9.9 thanks stellar

While I'm perfectly fine with omitting the faster Xatu-beating EV spread, it isn't true that Xatu just "sits there." Standard Xatu deals 55-66% with Psychic to 240 HP Nidoqueen (a standard move according to the on-site analysis).

Also, if you are keeping the 52 Speed EVs specifically for Milotic, you should note in the Set Comments that Sludge Wave never 2HKOs Restalk Milotic (248 HP/56 SpD, Calm) after SR (36-43%). Nidoqueen deals 41-49% to Physically Defensive Milotic (248 HP/0 SpD, Bold), so you only 2HKO after SR some of the time.

blarajan expressed interest in doing this analysis so im letting him take it. hes only going to write it and push it through gp

Nidoqueen will be up tomorrow. Sorry for the delay.