Lumineon (Update) [GP 2/2]

Lumineon

[Overview]

<p>To put it simply, Lumineon is extremely outclassed. Poor stats bar Speed (Lumineon is the third fastest Swift Swimmer, only being slower than Floatzel and Luvdisc) and a rather average movepool for a generic Swift Swim abuser ultimately force Lumineon into disuse. However, don't be so quick to discount this charming little fish. Lumineon's greatest offensive advantage over other Rain Dance abusers is her access to U-turn, which allows her to scout for troublesome walls instead of merely wasting a turn fruitlessly attacking them. However, ideally, Rain Dance teams should be muscling their way through virtually every wall in UU in the first place, making Lumineon's greatest offensive advantage over other Swift Swimmers moot. Because of this, Lumineon is more suited to be a Rain Dance supporter. Her ability to use Rain Dance, U-turn, and Safeguard all at once, while also being a decent abuser of Rain Dance, gives her a rather distinct niche. While Safeguard allows Lumineon to keep sweepers such as Kabutops free of status, even as a Rain Dance supporter, Lumineon struggles to grasp hold of a team spot since there are many other, better Rain Dance users who can also rid the team of status, such as Lanturn. Nonetheless, Lumineon is a cute fish whose minuscule niche might just mesh perfectly with your team.</p>

[SET]
name: Rain Dance Support
move 1: Rain Dance
move 2: Safeguard
move 3: U-turn
move 4: Surf
item: Damp Rock
ability: Swift Swim
nature: Timid
evs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>While Lumineon is outclassed by basically every other Swift Swim abuser in rain (hey, at least she's better than Luvdisc!), and almost every other Water-type outside of rain, Lumineon's access to Rain Dance, Safeguard, and U-turn gives her a unique niche in the lead position as a Rain Dance supporter. With Lumineon's great Speed and decent bulk, she has few issues getting both Safeguard and Rain Dance up against most leads before U-turning to an appropriate Rain Dance abuser. Leads such as Uxie who attempt to spread paralysis can find their attempts futile due to Safeguard, and will even prove to be setup bait for some Rain Dance abusers. Additionally, fast Taunt leads such as Ambipom and Alakazam fail to do much to her as she can simply U-turn to a strong Pokemon to threaten them, and she can still set up Rain Dance later in the match. To top it all off, once Rain Dance has been used, Lumineon is actually surprisingly dangerous, as rain-boosted Surfs can still deal a large amount of damage to frail sweepers despite Lumineon's pitiful offensive prowess.</p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

<p>Due to Lumineon's interesting Speed, different amounts of EV investment in Speed can be used with varying success. While max Speed is generally ideal to beat max base 90s such as Moltres, fewer Speed EVs can be used if you find that these Pokemon aren't particularly important to outspeed. 176 EVs allow Lumineon to outspeed all the Pokemon at the coveted Base 80 Speed mark outside of rain, which is a great overall mark for Lumineon to be just above. Due to this, it isn't particularly wise to use less Speed EVs than this, as otherwise Lumineon will be outsped by the omnipresent Venusaur. Leftover EVs can be placed in either defense depending on what you want Lumineon to switch in on. If you wish, you may use a Jolly nature with Waterfall instead of the recommended Timid nature and Surf to make U-turn slightly stronger, but this makes Lumineon's offense weaker due to Waterfall's lower Base Power.</p>

<p>Since Lumineon is designed to set up Rain Dance, Pokemon who can use the rain to their advantage are necessary. Traditional Water-type abusers such as Kabutops, Gorebyss, Ludicolo, Omastar, and Qwilfish are all natural candidates due to their blistering Speed and absurdly powerful Water-type attacks under rain. However, since Lumineon herself is a Water-type, stacking your entire team with only other Water-types is less than ideal, since it makes it incredibly easy for a reasonably fast Grass-type such as Sceptile to sweep once the rain has stopped falling. To prevent this from happening, using alternative rain abusers, such as Electric-types with Thunder and Hidden Power Water, in addition to extra Rain Dance users who can cover some major weaknesses are useful. Rotom and Manectric are good choices, with great Speed and Special Attack to fully abuse 100% accurate Thunder with. As for alternative Rain Dance users, Registeel makes a good choice to take on deadly Grass-types while being bulky enough to last throughout the match to keep Rain Dance up.</p>

[Other Options]

<p>Lumineon's movepool does have a few gimmicky options which can be used to justify her use, but they are typically extremely situational and another Pokemon probably does the job better. Lumineon has a large enough movepool to form both a generic physical and special Swift Swim abuser set, with Waterfall, Return, Bounce, U-turn, and Payback for the former, and Surf, Ice Beam, Hidden Power, Silver Wind, Psybeam, Air Cutter, and Ominous Wind for the latter. However, Lumineon lacks the stats to use either of these sets, and many of the attacks listed are situational at best. Lumineon has Tailwind as an alternative support option, but its effect doesn't last long enough for it to be effective. Agility is another way for Lumineon to boost her Speed, but Lumineon once again lacks the stats to use it effectively. Lumineon can use Toxic to cripple a bulky wall, but Lumineon doesn't really lure out walls that much since she's so weak that the opponent doesn't even need something that bulky to weather Lumineon's attacks. Lumineon can also use Tickle with U-turn to force switches and swing momentum in your team's favor, but since it's Lumineon, it's unlikely that the opponent will actually switch.</p>

[Checks and Counters]

<p>Dealing with Lumineon herself isn't really the main issue, as that's not a particularly arduous task at all. Fast Taunt leads can prevent her from setting up Rain Dance or Safeguard early on, and from there, Lumineon may have some trouble finding another opening to switch in again, as her bulk is only decent. The main problem you must prepare for when facing Lumineon is the threat of Rain Dance, which can easily rip through unprepared teams. Grass- and Water-types such as Venusaur, Leafeon, Milotic, and Slowbro are great against Rain Dance teams, resisting their Water-type moves and being able to hit back with a Grass- or Electric-type attack (Hidden Power Grass or Electric for the latter two). Registeel is also a decent option, with enough bulk to weather a hit and Explode to take out one lethal sweeper. It should be noted, however, that since Lumineon can easily prevent status with Safeguard, it's not ideal to attempt to use paralysis as your main counter to Rain Dance teams. Generally, the main idea against them is to use clever switching to prevent some of your more crucial walls from fainting, before striking back when the eight turns of Rain Dance end. Preventing Rain Dance from being set up in the first place is also ideal, since without Rain Dance, most Swift Swimmers are fairly easy to pick off and are not as threatening.</p>

Um. I suppose you could mention Psybeam specifically because it hits Toxicroak on the Special Sweeper set, but meh. Maybe even slash it in with HP Grass, since Luminion isn't going to be breaking through any Bulky Waters even with the SE coverage. LO HP Grass does 33% max to the standard Milotic, whereas LO Psybeam nets a clean OHKO on all common Toxicroak sets, even without Stealth Rock.

Mention that teammates that can tackle Chansey and Registeel are absolute musts with the Special Sweeper set. Dugtrio is a good example, especially with Arena Trap and the ability to come in off of U-Turn on T-Wave and such. Toxicroak too, since it can also beat down Milotic, who walls Luminion eight ways 'till Sunday.

I'd actually use the Rain support set, so that looks fine.

Literally outclassed by everything.

I don't see the usefulness of U-Turn on the Support Set. I mean, you're gonna use Rain Dance, then you U-Turn. But U-Turn is a problem here because in Rain, Lumineon's gonna outspeed everything. Thus, either your frail Rain sweeper gets hit or another of your bulky Rain support guys come in, but then you're wasting Rain turns. U-Turn is only useful for stuff like Uxie which run minimum speed, as the Rain Support is supposed to take incoming attacks, not the sweepers. Furthermore, Lumineon is a Water type, and Swift Swimmers are Water types, you're just attracting Grass and Electric attacks.

Why not run Toxic over U-Turn on any set? Pisses off those pesky Milotics... At least OO.

On the support set, in the lead position (which is actually where support Lumineon works best; I should probably emphasize that more), U-turn has great merit, since it allows Lumineon, who's probably bulkier than most of your team, to take a hit and switch out of troublesome Taunt leads. The thing is, before a Rain Dance, Lumineon is still slower than a lot of leads, and being able to get another member of your team to kill off the Taunter without taking a hit is extremely useful. Obviously after a Rain Dance U-turn loses much of its usefulness, but a fast U-turn isn't necessarily bad, since Lumineon is still a "reasonably" powerful Rain Dance sweeper which can cause switches, thus making U-turn's ability to scout useful. While using a Water-type to specifically set up Rain Dance is meh, Lumineon's ability to block status and potentially gain momentum is huge on Rain Dance teams where status can easily cripple a vital part of the team and momentum is crucial.

Toxic in OO sounds good.

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Last Analysis =,(

I'd remove the special attacker set to be honest, it's pretty ridiculous to attack stuff with a base 69 Special Attack, even with rain boost, and with competition from stuff like Omastar, who has 125 Special Attack, or Ludicolo, who's mexican; I don't see it being usable. On the main set it might be better to just go max Speed in order to setup before Moltres tears you apart. Finally, I'd consider Surf over Waterfall over U-turn. You get 15 extra BP to attack with at the cost of losing 10% of U-turn's damage, which should be no big deal. IMO that's what should be changed, outside of that good job and approved.

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Very good writeup on the whole.

Thanks, that GP check has been implemented. Only one more check is needed to finish this up.

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Awesome job as always SilentVerse