From Stardom to barely known: Rhyperior discussion

Aye, I gotta make one. Seriously, just look at this thing.



Ah, Dosaidon (aka Rhyperior). This thing is a monster. So first, before we head into this discussion, let's look at his stats:

Type: Rock / Ground

Abilities:
Solid Rock: If an attack is Super Effective, 1/4 of the damage is removed.
Lightningrod: Basically draws in Electric-moves in Double-battles.

BASE STATS!
HP: 115 (Max: 434)
Attack: 140 (Max Beneficial: 416)
Defense: 130 (Max Beneficial: 394)
Special Attack: 55 (...Forget it)
Special Defense: 55 (Max Beneficial: 229)
Speed: 40 (Max Beneficial: 196)

Alright, so on paper, his HP, Attack, and Defense are REALLY GOOD. His Special Defense is meh-ish, but he does gain the benefit of x1.5 boost in a Sandstorm. Special Attack... don't worry about this thing, it's pointless to even bring that stat up on a monster like this thing.

I know you're looking at 40 Speed and asking yourself "how is this any good?" Actually with max Speed, he is able to outspeed the STANDARD Skarmory. This means from stealing EVs from Speed, you can generate a rough number to stop at. I've given a small list for your "Magic Speed Numbers". These numbers are geared toward normal walls having 4 Speed EVs as well.

- Standard Mixpert requires 100 EVs to be outsped.
- Standard Blissey requires 128 EVs to be outsped.
- Standard Weezing requires 164 EVs to be outsped.
- Standard Skarmory requires 248 EVs to be outsped.

From there on out, he's not doing much more, sadly. Still, outspeeding those walls of the year are pretty nifty.

However, Rhyperior has a mixed blessing. Excellent STABs come at a cost of a total of 6 weaknesses. He is x4 weak to Grass and Water, and x2 weak to Steel, Fighting, Ice, and Ground. Eep...

So let's look at our NOTABLE MOVEPOOLS!

Physical:
- Poison Jab
- *Rock Blast
- Hammer Arm
- *Stone Edge
- *Earthquake
- Megahorn
- *Rock Wrecker (but only because he's the only one that learns it...)
- Focus Punch
- Shadow Claw
- Payback
- Avalanche
- Crunch
- Reversal
- *Rock Slide
- Dragon Rush
- Ice Fang
- Fire Fang
- Thunder Fang
- Fire Punch
- (IIRC Thunderpunch)

WOW! Look at that rather HUGE Physical Movepool. Just amazing really. The most notables are the STAB Earthquake and Stone Edge, as they brag a total of 100 Base Damage to throw around, and including STAB and that monstrous attack, not much is standing up to it. But that's not all, there's Megahorn, which can actually hurt Cresselia, Claydol and Bronzong (the latter two resist both of his STABs).

That's not all however, as thanks to the Physical / Special split, he gained some Elemental Fangs to fool around with, more so Ice, making Rock / Ice / Ground, making Bronzong the only to resist these three, and gains the benefit of hitting Flygon, who also resists his STABs. He is also sturdy enough to use Avalanche with moderate success, as he's slow enough. This is also a reason that Payback was mentioned here I guess, but it's generally weak and not recommended to use. Hammer Arm and Focus Punch are okay considerations as well, as those can KO Blissey with little problems... Dragon Rush isn't much consideration, but it has little resists.

I guess I can add more that he can Reversal with good success, but is too slow and doesn't benefit STAB from it.

SPECIAL (Just for laughs)
- Hidden Power
- Ice Beam / Blizzard
- Thunder / Bolt
- Shock Wave
- Flamethrower / Fire Blast
- Focus Blast
- Dragon Pulse
- Flash Cannon
- Surf

Let's pretend that Rhyperior can't learn Special Moves.

What's great as well however, is his support options:
- Horn Drill
- Roar
- Toxic
- Sunny Day / Rain Dance / Sandstorm
- Protect
- Rest
- Endure
- Rock Polish
- Swords Dance
- Stealth Rock
- Sleep Talk
- Natural Gift
- Curse
- Substitute

Perhaps your and my defenition of support moves are different, but here they are. The ones to concentrate on are the four bolded ones. Rest / Sleep Talk makes him a great tank to even be worthy of holding a Life Orb or Leftovers, pending on your desires. Rock Polish / Swords Dance make his craptacular Speed a bit better or his Attack even more monstrous. I guess he can Curse... >_>; Needs moar Special Defense, but it's somewhat... passable, I guess.

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More in-depth discussion would be his monstrous defensive stats. 434 / 394 is hard to stop, and with a Sandstorm boost and no Special Defense EVs invested, you can still obtain 172 Special Defense which... okay, it still sucks. Anyhow, let's focus more on his Attack. A grand total of 416 with a beneficial nature is nuts. Even with only 4 Atk EVs invested and geared more towards a tank, Rhyperior can still brag a shitload of power with a Choice Band, as that amounts to 429 Attack. That's actually a lot, considering that would make him have beefy defenses with exceptional attack (actually, scrap exceptional, how about probably a great tank indeed)!

So, let's look at some of our moveset:

DEFENSIVE MOVESETS!

Name: Standard
EVs: 252 HP/4 Atk/252 Def
Nature: Impish
Item: Leftovers
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Megahorn / Avalanche
- Roar / Stealth Rock

Name: Sleep Talker
EVs: 252 HP/4 Atk/252 Def
Nature: Impish
Item: Leftovers, Life Orb
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake

So, these are the best that Rhyperior could muster on the defensive side. The first set can have Substitute as well, or with having Megahorn AND Avalanche, you can run a Choice Bander. These are pretty good actually. Out of these, I like the Sleep Talker better, as you get almost forever Stone Edges... hehe.

OFFENSIVE MOVESETS!

Name: Choice Bander
EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk/4 Spd (Remember, take HP EVs away if you want more Speed. Apply this note to yourselves for the rest of the sets).
Nature: Adamant
Item: Isn't it obvious? Choice Band!
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Avalanche
- Megahorn

You can run Hammer Arm or Focus Punch over either Avalanche or Megahorn.

Name: Swords Dancer <----- This moveset will be discussed further in-depth than the rest of these
EVs: 128 HP/252 Atk/128 Spd. These EVs outspeed Blissey and still give 372 HP, which isn't bad.
Nature: Adamant
Item: Life Orb
- Swords Dance
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Megahorn

This is the reason I put this up: this thing is a monster! Use some Speed-passing or even use a defensive team with paralysis (hey, it worked for me) and you have yourself a nasty sweeper. Seriously, combining 832 Attack after a Swords Dance and using Stone Edge will OHKO your enemy Gliscors.

Oh yeah, bet you're thinking that this great Hippowdon can come in and ruin your fun... until you realize that even after a Stone Edge the Hippo himself is then KO'd by an incoming Earthquake (the minimum that Stone Edge does is 35%. The minimum Earthquake does against Hippo is 75%. So with Stealth Rock, you have an OHKO).

Cresselia is even loosing 70 - 83% from Stone Edge, so Megahorn will just eat that up (and for a fair tip, that's with a 252 / 252 Bold Cresselia)!

Weezing comes really close to a KO with Stone Edge... and with Stealth Rock, it is a sure KO (that is assuming Weezing is coming into Stone Edge.

Skarmory, probably Rhyperior's bane for killing your Baton Pass strategy, suffers 84 - 99% damage. Ouch.

Finally, the idiotic Pressure-user Dusknoir suffers 98% at the MINIMUM from Earthquake or Stone Edge. Of course this is a 252 / 252 Impish Dusknoir. WOW!

I've been shocked, as even with Min / Min stats, he can survive deadly hits from some sweepers that don't use SE attacks.

To show, Jolly Dragonite with two Dragon Dances on his belt WILL HAVE A SMALL CHANCE at OHKOing Rhyperior with Min / Min stats (the minimum amount is 86%) while using Outrage. Earthquake will do minimum 96% damage... >_>;

So yes, this thing is a beast. A beast that screams "USE ME!"

Decent Speed-Passers to consider this with:
- Ninjask
- Scizor
- Zapdos (Statistics show this one is the best probably)
- Jolteon

You can try Kristy (Bulk Up Floatzel) with this set, as that will even increase your defense, but you should practice it with the next set...

Name: Rock Polish(Er...)
EVs: 4 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Nature: Adamant / Jolly
Item: Life Orb
- Rock Polish
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Megahorn

You can use Ice Fang over Megahorn if you wish. A good idea to pair this up with is Kristy (Floatzel). After a couple of Bulk Ups, you are probably going to survive attacks much easier, give yourself some nifty Attack boosts, and even allowing yourself to use Rock Polish. Pending on the nature is what you outspeed. IIRC, you can even outspeed Base 110s with Adamant (dunno if you get the catch on Standard Starmie, however), and Jolly gives you around... 120 I think. Good set to try.

Decent Attack-Passers to try this with:
- Floatzel
- Ninjask
- Scizor

This is basically all that I can muster for this beast as far as movesets go.

Some great support Pokemon:



These are the two that I've used on my team. They equally resist his weaknesses very well. Vaporeon eats Steel, Ice, and Water. Salamence eats Fighting, Ground, and Grass. Good supports. Vaporeon can Wish-Pass with great success to him if Rhyperior can come in on an Electric attack. Salamence, as a Mixed Sweeper, is great to use beside Rhyperior and can even draw in Stone Edges for Rhyperior to come in and laugh at. Salamence can even act as a Wish-Passer in place of Vaporeon.

There are more possible Pokemon to use, and I will list them individually

- As stated before, Kristy can work wonders with the Rock Polish set.
- Weezing can play as a replacement for Salamence if you want a wall.
- Any Bulky Water (barring Swampert, Quagsire, Wishcash, and Gastradon) can work in Vaporeon's place. Beware of the four that I listed, as that will make you VERY Grass-weak.

Some things to watch out for:

- Obamasnow. He's a bitch to handle. >_>;
- Basically anything that is faster and carries a Super Effective move. Vague, yes. True, yes.

Hm, how about we open this to discussion, eh? Feel free to add comments, add suggestions on how to work this guy in team, etc. Cheers! ^_^

Sad to say that this will work, except that Hipmonlee has been using this for roughly I want to say...6 weeks now, except using the much much much much much more effective Zapdos to Baton Pass speed. =/

And truth be told, you're better off just maxing speed anyways.

Beastly, but there are simply too many things that are "faster and [carry] a Super Effective move".

Calculations are wayyyyyyyyyyy wrong.

From a glance, those calculations appear to be accurate actually.

Rhyperior's massive HP and defences don't help him at all when it comes to switching in...nearly every OU Pokemon packs an attack that is super-effective against him, and in my experience, he tends to get 2HKO'd a lot.

I think he should be played like a Marowak - only used in conjunction with a speed-passer or Trick Room.

70-80% on a cresselia and 84-99% on a skarmory looked very wrong on first sight even with choice band so i went to metalkid to check the calculations and unless i was using the calculator wrong, the calculations are quite off.

70-80% on a cresselia and 84-99% on a skarmory looked very wrong on first sight even with choice band so i went to metalkid to check the calculations and unless i was using the calculator wrong, the calculations are quite off.

Click to expand...

Read the thread then, those calculations are factoring in Swords Dance and Life Orb.

if there was a swordsdance involved it will be an ohko cresselia and skarmory according to stat calcs O.o

Aeroblacktyl said:

Sad to say that this will work, except that Hipmonlee has been using this for roughly I want to say...6 weeks now, except using the much much much much much more effective Zapdos to Baton Pass speed. =/

And truth be told, you're better off just maxing speed anyways.

Click to expand...

Goddamn i thought I was the only one using Rhyperior/Zapdos, looks like Hip has beaten me to it though.
Seriously though this thing is an absolute beast. There was a weird bug with Solid Rock on shoddy that was fixed recently which caused it to reduce damage only if Rhyperior was using a move super effective against itself, so that should further increase the number of users.
As MoP said, you're best of just making your speed, as that 4 extra EV's leftover won't really be doing good muchplace else if you've already given it 248 speed and 252 attack.

yeah, if people don't like rhyperior because of the super effective moves, they need to learn about solid rock. cuts all super effective damage received by half. as far as i know, earthquake does neutral damage on this thing. i wanna try:

rock polish
substitute
focus punch
earthquake


with lefties.

i am almost sure that solid rock was 25% reduction on super effective attacks

Really? I thought it was 33% reduction.

25% makes me want to use him even less.

4x Super effective hits hit at 2.66x, whilst 2x Super Effective does 1.33x damage.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21511

[ABILITY]
Solid Rock
[SHORT DESC]
Reduces damage from super effective hits by 1/4.
[LONG DESC]
Whenever a move is used on this Pokemon that is super effective, the damage is decreased by 1/4.

Calculations are wayyyyyyyyyyy wrong.

Click to expand...

Thanks for adding your own correct calculations and telling exactly where it went wrong.

If this bug on Shoddy about Solid Rock was fixed not so long ago, that explains why my Rhyperiors always kept taking a lot of damage from Ice Beam Blisseys. Like, way too much.

Otherwise this thing is like the opposite of Tentacruel when it comes to theorymon versus Shoddy.

I use Rhyperior on Trick Room teams and I find it pretty good. Swords Dancing in Trick Room is easy.

If people try to play him as a tank, they're bound to fail.
Special water/grass will almost always force him out even factoring in sandstorm and solid rock since his special defense is abysmal and a 4x weak should never be "overlooked".

The only way to go with Rhyperior is balls-to-the-wall. Pass him some speed and wreck faces in.

Zapdos + Rhyperior combined with a choice scarf tyranitar is gg if you manage to mass speed to rhyperior. Everytime.

I don't remember one time when in my alternate account I didn't win after managing to pass agility to rhyperior in sand storm. I was always able to get one swords dance off, and then whatever was left over, scarf ttar took care of, most notably Starmie, Cresselia, Azelf (with a miss).

The problem is, of course, actually managing to successfully pass the speed.

Also, I've been trying a two sides wall variant recently, to decent success. With 116 hp/16 atk/160 def/216 special def evs and adamant nature, he has 400 HP, 352 atk, 336 defense and 200 special defense, though 300 in sand (the only time I use him).

Swords dance to 704 atk, and hurt whatever comes in like hell. He ohko's starm while surviving the surf...lame game, with the usual chomp in the background, that fact alone is incredible.

As a tank, Rhyperior has just too many weaknesses; Ground is painful, Fighting is painful, and double weaknesses to Water and Grass are even more so. Baton Passing it Speed and letting it sweep sounds appealing, though.

I can't believe I overlooked Zapdos as far as Baton Passing Speed onto it. I guess it slipped out of my mind because it's an XD move. Seriously, I don't own anything past Ruby / Sapphire / FireRed / Diamond (goddamn I wish I had Emerald at least). I guess Jolteon could work in situations (I think you suggested it to me once Aero. >_>)

I like the idea of passing Speed, but the small problem that comes to mind is the whole "WOAHMG PHAZE / HAZE / etc." And Baton Pass is more of an "all-or-nothing strategy" at times. Still, I can see how Zapdos would be the best one to pass Speed.

The reason I used paralysis was because it wouldn't screw up passing Speed in general. All I would have to do is just Thunder Wave / Body Slam massacre, and I could paralyze teams. With a semi-defensive team, it worked pretty well (I had Blissey use Thunder Wave and Dusknoir use Body Slam. Actually the Paralysis worked better epsecially when it came to using Focus Punch, oddly enough).

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Also, those calculations are 100% accurate. They assume Life Orb and one Swords Dance (+2 Attack, or x2 if you will). I also wish I knew about the Solid Rock glitch. I had the same problem as Mekkah as far as taking Ice Beam damage like nuts.

Playing it as a physical tank is tough, yes. The ass-load of weaknesses really don't help at all, my God. Still, it has the Stats to attempt it (but shouldn't be used at all). Stick with the Attacking strategies (or even SleepTalking, which worked okay for me).

All the Speed Numbers proved was that it is possible to outspeed whatever you need. All I was showing was the bar minimum to outspeed what. Of course, most should probably just play 252 Atk/252 Spe/4 HP.

I guess this sort of wants me to try Baton Pass strategy instead (of course I'd be copying a couple of people... but who cares, it works, right)!?!

Just wanna note: there is some competion for who can use that agilipassing.
1. Breloom
2. Togeflinch (no need for paralysis when you're faster than everything)
3. Guts Ursaring baby :-) Faster, stronger, and more accurate attacks than Rhyperior. Crunch / Facade / Close Combat hits everything.
4. PorygonZ
5. Hell, Expert Belt Azelf can beat Weavile with Flamethrower if it gets an agility.

Rhyperior has the defenses to laugh at the hits, but Togekiss has very good Sp. Def and roost + agility is a godsend when boltbeamers come in.

I'm not saying its a bad idea, but if you're going to agilipass, you might as well think of alternatives first.

Playing it as a physical tank is tough, yes. The ass-load of weaknesses really don't help at all, my God. Still, it has the Stats to attempt it (but shouldn't be used at all).

Click to expand...

You cannot in full honesty say that he is a tank and say that he has an assload of weaknesses.

His role as a tank is situational: as in he can take THREE or FOUR SE physical hits, TWO 4xE physical hits, TWO special SE hits (in ss), or ONE 4xE special hit (in ss). If you pass him speed and let him get hit on that one turn, there's a good chance you can continue on to sweep.

But a tank that can switch in often and callously, he is not. No reliable recovery and the ability to get OHKO'd by moderately paced special attackers completely negates this ability. He doesn't even qualify as a sponge if he can get OHKO'd with relative ease.

Not every pokemon is "kinda" good at everything and "great" in a few things. You don't need to sugar-coat the fact that he explodes to any random Surf or Grass Knot, focus on his strengths instead.



Agilipassing is best for these kind of high-power monsters with awkward defenses. Anything that has a Choice Scarf set in the analyses can do well with agilipass since that frees up an item slot for them.
To tack onto DT's list, a Glaceon would love some speed to just lay into the CSpecs Blizzards with. A lot of things get 2/3HKO'd by her that were relying on their ability to outspeed previously.
LO Machamp also loves speed. To say nothing of his strength, getting confusion in on the opponent before they move reduces his chance of getting hit by half.

Rhyperior may not be a tank by the definition of "I can send him into a lot of stuff with my eyes closed", but when you combine his overall average defensive capabilities with his massive attack power, you have something that has a good chance of wrecking a lot of things while also being moderately easy to switch in.

If Normal hard hitters such as Staraptor, Tauros etc were more popular he would probably be more useful. :(

*Grumble*. I guess I defined "tank" wrong. As far as the sweeping goes, he has the ability to do it. To actually STAY and take hits forever, nope. Usually the taking hits won't matter much if you actually play him as more of a sweeper instead of a Pokemon that stays and blocks hits forever.

And to also add to DragonTamer's list, there's also MixTar, Rampardos, Marowak, Exploud to a lesser extent... the list goes on. However, Rhyperior has a good all-around STAB to exploit himself, the ability to counter basic Physical Walls after a Swords Dance, and the ability to take a couple of hits (and as you've said, some that are even SE) and still fight back (and I'm not putting down any other sweeper, as they can take hits to certain extents as well). The one that might come CLOSE to Rhyperior would be Togekiss, and the reason would be is because of FlinchHaxx and the ability to heal itself. Breloom would be a close second with Poison Heal.

Well, I do kind of wish Pokemon like Tauros, Staraptor, and Slaking appeared more often, but they just seemed to loose a bit of popularity. Still, they could become more popular later on, but a little less likely too.

wow, some stats ryhperior has. he could do some damage.