Escavalier @Occa berry/Leftovers
Trait: Swarm
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Adamant
- Megahorn
- Iron Head/Return
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
Category: Underrated Set
Why it works: With sleeptalk being released in BW2, escavalier, with its great bulk, sole weakness, and tiny movepool, actually makes for a devastating rest-talk abuser, kinda like kingdra in gen 2. With an occa berry, escavalier becomes an excellent answer to grass types in RU, not giving a dime about sleep powder and smacking all very hard with its rest-talk combo while easily surviving a HP fire. Rest-talk, not only keeps esca going for much longer in the match, but also lets you beat a lot of walls more easily. You don't have to worry about tangrowth's sleep powder or ghost-types' will-o-wisps and even scalds which are traditionally one of the best methods to deal with escavalier. Megahorn, even without its choice band boost, still puts a hefty number on plenty of things and Iron head, while not getting particularly great coverage, still hurts a decent ammount and, most importantly, does a good number to ghost types, letting you wear them down to a point where they are forced to pain split/rest and you can make a safe switch to something else.
Positives/Negatives: The most obvious one here is recovery and immunity to status which are both huge for esca, letting it provide a threat for a very long time throughout the match which is very useful as it can be near unstoppable once fire types are removed which is easily done if you keep SR up. The main negative is that it doesn't hit nearly as hard as its CB set, even though it will usually end up dealing more damage in total throughout the game, so with any walls who aren't weak to it and have a recovery move, it can often become a stale-mate and so you can't rely on escavalier to break walls. Therefore, pairing it with another wall-breaker can be very beneficial as esca can usually force the opponent into recovery quite quickly and then give a free switch to said breaker. Rhydon's a good choice, providing SR and having very good synergy with esca.