Mamoswine

[cosmicexplorer]

Mamoswine
HP: 110
Atk: 130
Def: 80
SpA: 70
SpD: 60
Spe: 80

Singles/Doubles/Triples Sets
Mamoswine @ Ice Gem / Focus Sash
252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Atk
nature: Adamant
ability: Snow Cloak
-Earthquake
-Icicle Crash
-Ice Shard
-Protect / Stone Edge

• Mamoswine's huge Attack stat and excellent coverage makes it an excellent physical attacker in Doubles and Triples play.
• Mamoswine has excellent coverage with its STAB attacks, and scores a super effective hit on a multitude of common Pokemon. Ice Shard is useful priority which allows Mamoswine to take out Dragon- and Flying-types at lower health.
• An Ice Gem allows Mamoswine to hit a lot harder with its Ice-type STAB and get key KOes with Ice Shard, but Mamoswine's immunity to both sandstorm and hail makes Focus Sash another good choice, allowing it to survive any attack and hit back hard.
• Mamoswine's lower Speed and poor Special Defense, along with the multitude of weaknesses thanks to its Ice typing, means that it's very reliant upon Focus Sash to stay alive. To help remedy this, a fast attacker such as Weavile or a Choice Scarf user such as Darmanitan can make an excellent partner for Mamoswine, taking out the faster attackers that plague it. A Fake Out user can also prove especially useful, immobilizing an opponent while Mamoswine takes it out.
• This set can work perfectly well in Singles play with a Focus Sash or Life Orb, and Stone Edge hits Pokemon such as Gyarados that take little from Mamoswine's other attacks.
• Avalanche is more powerful if Mamoswine is slower, but the extra power is often unnecessary and the attack is quite weak if Mamoswine is faster than the opponent.

[muffinhead]

ICE GEM ICE GEM ICE GEM ICE GEM ICE GEM
gets those koes man! (dont you remember we calced them when we made that team ;_;)

[Tenodera]

The set should probably be labeled "Singles/Doubles/Triples" as it functions perfectly well there too if Protect is replaced with Stone Edge or something.

Also, if you're using Focus Sash, Avalanche might be worth considering over Icicle Crash.

[cosmicexplorer]

That's a good point. I've added a mention for Singles play.

Avalanche is good if Mamoswine outspeeds its opponent, but the extra power is unnecessary, and it's quite weak if the opponent is slower than it. I've added it, though.

[Baz Anderson]

I would have thought Icicle Spear would have been the preferred option over Icicle Crash, for Substitutes - namely Garchomp's.

[kingofkongs]

The bad thing about that is that it's unreliable, it can hit anywhere from 2-5 times which can screw you over when you really need it not to. The reason Cloyster uses it is because it has Skill Link as an ability, which means it will always hit five times. However, since Mamoswine doesn't have this, Icicle Crash is the more reliable option.

[Baz Anderson]

It just depends on whether one of its main uses is going to be breaking Substitues or not... even one Icicle Spear hit past the broken Sub. is better than no others. On the GBU, a Garchomp with a Substitute up seems to be most of the way to a win. Plus, Icicle Crash has the 90% accuracy with Icicle Spear at 100%.

[muffinhead]

Icicle spear has a 37.5% chance to hit twice, 37.5% 3 times, 12.5% 4 times, and 12.5% all 5 times. It can hit through Yache Berry, but overall, Ice Shard is better.

[Baz Anderson]

I would run both... unless by "Ice Shard" you meant "Icicle Crash".

[muffinhead]

I do mean Ice Shard. For example:

opponent sent out Garchomp!

you called back ____!
you sent out Mamoswine!
Garchomp used Substitute!

Mamoswine used Ice Shard!
Garchomp's substitute faded!
Garchomp used attack!
Mamoswine hung on with its Focus Sash!

Mamoswine used Ice Shard!
Garchomp ded xd

If you were using Icicle Spear, you would have to rely on more than 2 hits to KO Garchomp. If you were using Icicle Drop, Garchomp would attack Mamoswine a second time.

[Baz Anderson]

I see what you're saying but I think that on the GBU, Icicle Spear would overall be better than Icicle Crash with all the Focus Sashes and Dragonites and other Subsituters out there. I plan on running both Icicle Spear and Ice Shard on mine anyway, with Earthquake and Stealth Rock (for fun, can easily be TMed Stone Edge if I miss it...)

[Arcticblast]

My Mamoswine is Naughty with shit IVs from gen4 (so no Icicle Crash) but it still kicks ass without a doubt.

[Baz Anderson]

I've just hatched a little miracle... Adamant, 31/31/31/31/17/31 with Icicle Spear and Stealth Rock. Has Pokérus and will be trained soon... not that this is really relevant for the topic though...

I guess I'll see how the Icicle Spear does when I get using it on the wi-fi.

[NC]

Average power for Icicle Crash = .9*(.9375*85+.0625*170) = 81.28125

Average power for Icicle Spear (where x=(25*.9375+50*.0625)) = (1/3)*2*x + (1/3)*3*x + (1/6)*4*x + (1/6)*5*x = 84.114583

*According to the research thread, there is a 1/3 chance of hitting 2 or 3 times and 1/6 chance of hitting 4 or 5.



This takes everything into account except Icicle Spear's breaking subs/sashes and Icicle Crash's flinch chance, but Icicle Spear actually does more damage on average. You could say Icicle Crash is more reliable, but that only applies if you "have" to do > 75 power because Icicle spear is more reliable at doing "some" damage with its 100 accuracy. Either way, they are similar enough in effectiveness that I would slash the two.

[Jibaku*]

@moof

It would be that simple - until you remember that these two things can happen

1) Yache Berry activates and prevents the second Ice Shard from killing, while Mamoswine dies in the process, since iirc resist berries don't activate under Subs
2) The opponent switches out after the Substitute and now you have a 1 HP Mamo throwing a 40 BP move to something else.

However, with Icicle Spear, you can smack its Substitute, and at the least waste its Yache Berry. And of course, there's always that chance you'll kill it. Keep in mind that a single Spear does at least 54% to Garchomp - Mamo only needs 3 hits to OHKO a Sub Garchomp, Yache or not. If you're unlucky enough that Icicle Spear only hits twice, but is lucky enough that Garchomp isnt holding a Yache Berry, you'll at least damage it enough that it can no longer use Substitute later on. If Ice Gem is taken into account, two hits alone will take it down.

Icicle Spear is also great for another known Substitute user: Gliscor. Gliscor can do annoying stuff like Sub/Protect stalling with Poison Heal or abusing Sand Veil. Icicle Spear can sometimes net a surprise KO or at least force it out in the sub.

So yeah I'd definitely slash Spear in with Crash. If you're weird you could use 3 Ice Attacks but you lose coverage against Gyarados/Rotom so meh....

[Empyrea]

Originally Posted by Fat Jibaku

2) The opponent switches out after the Substitute and now you have a 1 HP Mamo throwing a 40 BP move to something else.

This scenario is very likely as Garchomp and Metagross seemed to be conjoined at the hip in GBU singles, thankfully with some prediction you can handle at least one of the two while leaving the other damaged for hopefully a Pokemon you have in reserve to clean up.

First off, I thought an Adamant Mamoswine only did 88%-104% damage to a 4/0 Garchomp with Ice Shard (no Ice Gem), so it only has about a 25% chance to 1HKO'd it or not. This, however, leaves you slower than Jolly Breloom (another common GBU singles threat) and it isn't a favorable position to be in when it gets Sleep off. Jolly Mamoswine also lets you usually outspeed or match in speed a couple other common GBU singles Pokemon such as Gliscor, Dragonite, Togekiss, and Gallade/Medicham. If Adamant Mamoswine actually does more than that to Garchomp, then sorry for my ignorance, I haven't tried it.

The threat of Mamoswine seems to make Garchomp users play very cautiously after just seeing Mamoswine through the team preview I think largely thanks to Icicle Spear breaking through Garchomp Subs, so for that reason alone my vote is for Icicle Spear getting a slash. Most use Choice Band, Scarf, or Yache Berry, and in the case of the Choice items you don't have to worry about Subs anyway. The scenario I've seen dozens of times before is instead of using Substitute, the Garchomp uses Earthquake (or Outrage if you have a Flying/Levitating Pokemon in), assuming the Pokemon you have in has no way of 1HKO'ing it, hoping you switch into Mamoswine, or if not, leaving your current Pokemon in the yellow/red/dead. Sometimes it is desirable to sacrifice one of your Pokemon so that you can let Mamoswine face off against Garchomp fresh and more likely than not force a switch. If they do use a Sub though, they had better hope to have another Pokemon on the bench to soak the Ice Shard in the chance that (in muffinhead's scenario) Icicle Spear is used instead and only hits twice, and you had better hope to have another Pokemon on your bench to deal with their Ice Shard soaker.

The most recent game I played actually had Garchomp, Metagross, and Breloom all on 1 team: 39-33123-79287.

A little recap of this game:
Turn 1: My Jolly Mamoswine can't actually 1HKO Breloom if Icicle Spear only hits twice (no crits), but thankfully I've only ever had it hit twice against a Breloom in one other occasion aside from this turn. I was hoping he would stay in and eat 3 Icicle Spear hits, thinking I was Adamant, but he switched out to Metagross.

Turn 6: I anticipated a switch to Metagross so I used Earthquake, but he went to Breloom, his best move at the time since it let his Metagross face off against my Mamoswine fresh.

Turn 9: Predicted the Bullet Punch so I swapped to Volcarona. Haven't meet anyone ballsy enough to try it yet, but in this case with my Mamoswine at 1 HP and my Volcarona just above 1/2, if he used Meteor Mash instead of Bullet Punch and it hit, he would have won.

[Baz Anderson]

Well I've EV trained and ground to level 100 with my Mamoswine and had a little go on the wi-fi... it seems to work exceptionally well, and after a few battles has already taken down a Substituting Garchomp with the Icicle Spear. Good stuff!

[DreamTalon]

A good EV spread to run is 76 HP, 252 Atk, 180 Speed with Jolly. It out speeds +natured 252 Speed base 70s, like Metagross and Breloom, 2 major threats in double and triples.

[muffinhead]

Originally Posted by Fat DreamTalon

A good EV spread to run is 76 HP, 252 Atk, 180 Speed with Jolly. It out speeds +natured 252 Speed base 70s, like Metagross and Breloom, 2 major threats in double and triples.

You don't see too many Jolly 252 Metagross or even Breloom. Both of these Pokemon have priority and enjoy the +atk nature. If 252 Speed Adamant Breloom is a threat to your team only because of fast Spore, then 180 speed with an Adamant nature would be a wiser choice. Mamoswine also has a priority move of its own, so +spe in doubles / triples is rarely a good idea.

[cosmicexplorer]

Echoing muffinhead's post, Metagross and Breloom (and Politoed too) never, or hardly ever, run maximum Speed unless they're scarfed, in which case they outspeed you anyway.