Snover (QC 3/3)
 

I'll write this over the next day or so

[Overview]
<p>Snover is the only legal Pokemon that can summon permanent weather in Underused, making him a mandatory member of a hail team. Unfortunately, Snover is a pretty terrible Pokemon, with not a single stat higher than Base 62. It's quite challenging to make Snover into a useful threat on a hail team. At least with its decent Grass / Ice typing and Eviolite, it can carve a small niche for itself as a Bulky Water check that can set up weather on these threats with relative impunity. However, Snover will always be limited by the relative weakness of his attacks as well as his vulnerability to Stealth Rock and super-effective attacks.</p>

[SET]
name: Hail Support
move 1: Leech Seed
move 2: Blizzard
move 3: Protect / Substitute
move 4: Giga Drain / Substitute
item: Eviolite
ability: Snow Warning
nature: Modest
evs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD

[SET COMMENTS]
<p>This set is Snover's best chance at doing something once it has set up Hail. With this spread and Eviolite, Snover has 323 HP and 235 Special Defense, which gives it enough bulk to set up on the metagame's bulky water types such as Swampert, Blastoise, Suicune, and Milotic. With the given Special Attack, Snover has enough power to check a variety of Pokemon - for example, Raikou is 2HKOed by Blizzard, and without Aura Sphere it can't do too much back. Most of Snover's job is done once Snow Warning has activated, but this set aims to accomplish as much as it can while it's in play.</p>

<p>Leech Seed is a good support move in general and something that sets Snover apart from other members of a Hail team. Blizzard is the obligatory STAB attack, which, due to its high Base Power, does decent damage despite coming from a mere 245 Special Attack stat. The last two moves Snover runs depends on whether or not you want to take out Water types directly, what kind of attacks you want to scout, and personal preference. Protect buys a turn of Leech Seed recovery and allows you to scout for Choice attackers. Substitute won't help much for scouting unless used on a predicted switch, but Snover is a decent executor of the SubSeed strategy, sapping HP with both Leech Seed and Hail damage. Most bulky waters cannot break the Substitute in one hit, allowing Snover to stall them out. Giga Drain allows you to directly combat Bulky Waters, sometimes OHKOing Swampert and sometimes 2HKOing Blastoise, while also healing Snover a little bit.</p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
<p>The EVs are carefully optimized to ensure Snover has the potential to do something before it dies. 248 HP and 8 Special Defense ensures that Suicune, Blastoise, and Milotic cannot break a Snover Substitute with their 0 SpA Ice Beams. Special Attack is maximized as its the only real way that Snover can hit things, and extra defensive investment doesn't go far enough to offset the difference in power. One can choose to reallocate HP EVs to Speed in order to outrun Relaxed or Impish Swampert - you need 96 and 164 Speed EVs respectively to accomplish this. Outrunning Swampert lets you KO it with Giga Drain before it can set up Stealth Rock, but your bulk takes a notable hit for a very specific situation. Special Defense investment is also possible, but you really need all of the Special Attack investment in order to do anything.</p>

(more coming)

• Max Special Attack gives Snover his best chance of accomplishing something.
• EVs ensure that Suicune / Blastoise / Milotic never break its Substitute with 0 SpA Ice Beam
• Speed investment for Relaxed / Impish Swampert (96 / 164) can come out of HP, letting you KO lead Swampert before it can set up Stealth Rock, but your bulk takes a notable hit.
• Special Defense is possible to invest in, but Snover becomes even more useless that way.
• Snover should only be used on teams that take advantage of Hail, and its partners should be picked carefully.
• Offensively, good spammers of Blizzard include Rotom-F, Jynx, Sheer Force Nidoking / Nidoqueen, and Froslass.
• Defensively, a hail team can take advantage of Ice Body Walrein to stall opponents to death.
• Both styles of play benefit from entry hazards from Spikes Froslass
• Either style of team needs adequate coverage of Fire, Fighting, and Rock type attacks. Nidoqueen can handle both of the latter, while Pokemon like Porygon2, Snorlax, and Arcanine can all handle Fire attacks.

[Other Options]
<p>Snover doesn't really have much else it can do. A Choice Band set is perhaps the most interesting option. Snover has access to Wood Hammer and Ice Shard, which give it much needed power and priority, but it is still easily walled and losing Eviolite makes Snover much harder to use effectively. Other than that, Shadow Ball is an option to attempt to beat Froslass before it sets up on your team... and that's about it.</p>

[Checks and Counters]

• In terms of what Snover aims to do (set up permanent hail) it has no "true" counters - nothing else sets up permanent weather in UU.
• Setting up Rain Dance or Sunny Day will end Hail until Snover comes back into play. Tornadus is the most common Rain Dancer in UU, but it is weak to Ice.
• Bronzong is perhaps the perfect counter - can set up weather, resists both STAB attacks, and hits back with a STAB SE Steel attack.
• Snorlax works similarly, but Leech Seed and Giga Drain put a bit of a dent into it.
• Specially Defensive Rhyperior, if it's faster, can check even Substitute Snover with Rock Blast.
• Snover hates Super-Effective hits, especially from the physical side, so once you bring in any reasonably strong Pokemon on Snover, it's done for.
• Setting up Stealth Rock is important if you aim to wear down Snover as it constantly comes in to replenish its weather type.

outline

A Snover set that I used successfully on several teams is a speedier, more annoying take on the Hail Support set:

http://www.pokemonelite2000.com/wp-c...011/03/459.gif@ Leftovers
Trait: Snow Warning
Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
- Leech Seed
- Substitute
- Protect
- Blizzard

This set is obviously super odd looking, but I've found that it can be way more useful for my teams than the standard Eviolite sets. Even with Eviolite, Snover isn't going to be winning any Defensive awards, though certainly it does increase its bulk significantly. This set capitalizes on annoying your opponent. Minimum HP is used so that Leech Seed heals Snover for upwards of 18% against most enemies, meaning that between Substitute, Protect, and Leftovers, Snover will be healing more health than it is losing via using Substitute. Protect also makes Snover an interesting lead as it can scout out the sets of an opposing pokemon. If Victini uses V-Create, its generally a good bet that you are facing a Physical Victini and if Arcanine doesn't have leftovers, you know its an offensively based Arcanine. There are many more examples of its effectiveness as a Scout. Maximum Speed allows Snover to get the jump on Swampert, Bronzong, Blastoise, and everything with no speed investment under 80 Base Speed. This allows it to take out these pokemon one on one, as the combination of Substitute, Protect, and Leech Seed eventually stalls them to death or to very low health. Bronzong, something that plagues other sets, can be checked. Imagine the following scenario:

Turn 1
Snover uses Leech Seed
Bronzong uses Stealth Rock (predicting your switch because of the unfavorable match up)

Turn 2
Snover uses Substitute (its best to substitute in case they switch immediately, as you can then set up on the switch in)
Bronzong uses Gyro Ball

From there you can either Protect or Substitute to your heart's content. I'm not suggesting that Snover is a check to Bronzong midgame, just that it has more of an advantage over Bronzong than does the set already outlined. Snover has a great advantage over grass switch ins if it is behind a sub, because unlike other subseeder's, Snover can answer their switch with a super effective Blizzard.

Obviously this set has its downfalls, but I'd recommend trying it out before immediately rejecting it. This Snover isn't just a throw away spot; it can be used as a rather effective annoyer throughout the match. Having tested both sets thoroughly, I can say with confidence that I much prefer using this set and find it very viable.

you don't need to be faster than Blastoise or Swampert to Sub-Seed them as you can just tank the initial hit and throw up a late Sub - in Bronzong's case you outrun him anyway without the added burden of taking fatal damage from Gyro Ball due to the heavy speed investment. maybe i'd shoot to outrun Machamp but anything more seems excessive

Well being faster than the defensive Swampert is nice to kill it before it can set up Rocks, which plagues Hail Teams. Being faster than Blastoise is unnecessary, though.

Both can use Toxic and that drastically cuts out Snover's bulk as a subseeder. Other than Toxic they can't really touch it so outspeeding them is a nice benchmark.

Snover isn't really going to be around much longer after the Bulky Water dies. It's certainly not staying in on anything else.

Snover has *base 40* speed. I can see an argument to run EVs to catch Swampert, but you need 96 EVs just to catch -Speed Swampert and 164 EVs to outspeed Impish Swampert. Snover can't really afford to lose Special Attack or it's worthless on that front - you really need the 252 EVs in order to accomplish *anything*, and Snover becomes less able to take simple hits without HP investment.

The moves should look like this:

Leech Seed
Blizzard
Protect / Substitute
Giga Drain / Substitute

Everything else looks okay, so once you make this change (and edit the skeleton accordingly), I'll approve.

I made the changes and added EVing for Swampert. Should I make the Impish EVs standard? I might want to run a few calcs.

I'd keep the standard as you have it now and mention both SpD and Def spreads in AC.

QC Approved 1/3

So... Abomsnow dropped. I'm gonna lock this and leave it in this forum just in case Aboma gets banned for some reason.

Sucks that you did all this work and then that happened lol