Articuno

[Sprocket]

Author note: Released for whoever wants to take a crack at it for VGC2012. Hurricane is not a legal move until C&C say it is.


Articuno

[OVERVIEW]

Pros:
-Good offensive typing
-Good overall bulk
-Acceptable support move pool
-Main STABs are 120BP and hit many common VGC Pokemon for super effective damage.

Cons:
-4x weak to Rock
-2x weak to Electric, Fire, Steel
-Extremely shallow offensive move pool
-Is outclassed by a lot of Pokemon

[SET]
name: Offensive
move 1: Blizzard / Ice Beam
move 2: Hurricane
move 3: Tailwind / Hail
move 4: Protect
item: Charti Berry / Life Orb
nature: Modest
EVs: 236 HP / 252 SpA / 20 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

-Blizzard is Articuno's main attack. STAB, hits both opposing Pokemon, ~19% chance to freeze an opposing Pokemon each use assuming both survive and Hail is not active.
-Ice Beam is an option if you aren't using Abomasnow as a teammate due to the higher accuracy, but Blizzard still has a decent chance to hit at least one opponent each usage.
-Hurricane for secondary STAB, hits Fighting types harder than Blizzard, but coverage is weaker. Bonus 30% chance to confuse if it hits.
-Tailwind is a great utility move for Articuno and teammates to outspeed faster threats.
-Hail for changing weather to a Hail Storm.
-Protect is standard in VGC, makes scouting easier and reduces damage taken.

[TEAM OPTIONS & ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

-EV spread and nature are to give Articuno as much offensive power and bulk as possible. Articuno can't outspeed anything significant with its awkward base 85 speed.
-Modest nature & 20 Speed EV outspeeds standard Dragonite and uninvested Togekiss.
-Abomasnow support is greatly appreciated for the permanent Snowstorm, boosting Blizzard accuracy to 100%. Overall Articuno is a lot more threatening with Blizzard than Ice Beam. However this makes your team extremely vulnerable to Rock and Fire attacks.
-Articuno also benefits from Drizzle Politoed; permanent rain neutralizes its weakness to Fire-type attacks and boosts Hurricane to 100% accuracy, but partnering with Politoed also doubles up on the Electric weakness.
-Charti Berry allows Articuno to survive a single Rock Slide from common users like Tyranitar and Terrakion, otherwise it is OHKO'd.
-Life Orb can be used to strengthen Articuno's attacks
-Wide Guard users can protect from common spread attacks that severely harm Articuno.
-Lightningrod partners such as Marowak or Rhyperior can draw in electric attacks.
-Flash Fire partners such as Heatran or Chandelure can switch in and take a predicted fire attack aimed at it.

[SET]
name: Dual Screen
move 1: Reflect
move 2: Light Screen
move 3: Ice Beam / Blizzard
move 4: Protect / Roost
item: Light Clay / Charti Berry
nature: Bold
evs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

-Provided Nature and EV spread allows Articuno to always survive unboosted Tyranitar's Rock Slide even without a Charti Berry.
-Ice Beam / Blizzard is the main attack, taking advantage of its Ice-type STAB.
-Reflect + Light Screen for dual screens.
-Light Clay to increase duration of Reflect or Light Screen
-Protect is standard in VGC
-Roost for longevity, and reduce Electric/Rock damage, but opens you up to Fighting attacks

[TEAM OPTIONS & ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

-Abomasnow is greatly appreciated for setting up a permanent Snowstorm, however this will double up on the Fire and Rock weaknesses. Politoed also works for setting up permanent Rain to neutralize Fire-based attacks aimed at it, but doubles up the Electric weakness.
-Works with Articuno's good bulk to take hits well. Short of a super effective attack or a critical, this set is difficult to kill. Even Latios using Dragon Gem boosted Draco Meteor will fail to OHKO.
-Alternate spread of Calm Nature, 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe to turn Articuno into a special wall, but leaves you more open to Rock Slide.
-Intimidate and Fake Out support make it easier for Articuno to get screens up. Hitmontop is an ideal partner for this.

[OTHER OPTIONS]

-Articuno has few viable support moves not listed: Heal Bell, Toxic, Rain Dance, Sunny Day, Sandstorm
-Roar can stop Trick Room from setting up
-Ice Shard for priority
-Other special attacks include Signal Beam and AncientPower, also access to the physical moves Aerial Ace, Pluck, U-Turn, Air Cutter.
-Extremely risky to attempt, but a combination of Mind Reader + Sheer Cold can net OHKOs.
-HP Fire can hit Scizor and Ferrothorn (who otherwise wall Articuno), while HP Fighting will give Articuno nearly perfect offensive coverage.
-Regardless of Hidden Power, Articuno is going to have coverage problems.
-Choice Scarf is viable for the surprise, outspeeding the entire unboosted metagame minus Electrode, Accelgor, and Ninjask.
-Focus Sash to guarantee surviving at least one attack, but Sandstorm residual damage will finish Articuno off.
-Pokemon that can cover Articuno's weaknesses are excellent partners.
-Intimidate support is always useful to lessen the impact of Rock attacks.

[CHECKS AND COUNTERS]

-Articuno is easy to counter.
-Rock Slide, Discharge, Heatwave are very common spread moves that hit for Super Effective damage. Likewise Thunderbolt and Flamethrower are very common single-target attacks that harm Articuno.
-Tyranitar is it's biggest individual threat; Sand Stream versions change the weather on switch-in, and OHKO with Rock Slide + Sand damage, while Unnerve prevents Charti Berry usage outright. Terrakion also outspeeds and OHKOs with Rock Slide.
-STAB Rock Slide in particular will likely OHKO if Charti Berry isn't used, regardless of who's using it. Even with Charti Berry, Articuno is going to take heavy damage from Rock Slide.
-Other weather starters remove Hail, crippling Blizzard to 70% accuracy.
-Rotom-W, Rotom-H, Rotom-F completely wall Articuno, and all hit back hard.
-Common Steel types such as Metagross and Scizor can attack with STAB Meteor Mash or Bullet Punch, and resist Blizzard or Hurricane.
-Wide Guard will stop Blizzard cold.

[UNRELEASED]

<p>Articuno receives Snow Cloak as its unreleased ability. In VGC this would be the ability of choice, as a 20% increase in evasion in Hail will help Articuno's survivability more than Pressure.</p>

[Sprocket]

Ready for QC. Too bad this bird has such a terrible defensive typing.

[TrollFreak]

Maybe use both Reflect and Light Screen in the defensive set to make it dual screens?

Also, you need to take advantage of the Special Defense, as other than Rock Slide, most of its weaknesses are usually special (Heat Wave, Thunderbolt etc) and Rock Slide does a shitton regardless

-Ice Shard and Water Pulse for priority

Water Pulse isn't priority, just a nitpick

-RestTalk set is doable

With all those common weaknesses, i really don't think it can pull it off

Maybe mention specific examples for Steel-type Pokemon, and only Rotom-W, Rotom-H, and Rotom-F wall Articuno (the other two fear Blizzard)

Just my input, great looking skelly :D

[Sprocket]

Originally Posted by Fat TrollFreak

Maybe use both Reflect and Light Screen in the defensive set to make it dual screens?

Good idea

Also, you need to take advantage of the Special Defense, as other than Rock Slide, most of its weaknesses are usually special (Heat Wave, Thunderbolt etc) and Rock Slide does a shitton regardless

I'll see what I can come up with.

Water Pulse isn't priority, just a nitpick

For some reason I thought it was. Good catch.

Maybe mention specific examples for Steel-type Pokemon, and only Rotom-W, Rotom-H, and Rotom-F wall Articuno (the other two fear Blizzard)

Good idea

[Solace*]

tailwind is a really good move for articuno, ice beam should probably be slashed if you dont feel like using hail because of a double fire weakness if youre using aboma

lightningrod pokemon are good partners, as well as earthquake users

rain users can also be a help to articuno, weakening fire power and also benefiting swift swimmers in getting rid of rock slide users

just a few suggestions

[Sprocket]

Made a few revisions based on suggestions.

[Sprocket]

So I'm thinking about it, and I'm not completely sure that Hidden Power Flying is the ideal choice for Articuno, even if it is a secondary STAB. HP Fighting would give far better neutral coverage versus things that resist Ice, outside of Jellicent, Froslass, and Chandelure. Opinions?

[TrollFreak]

all 3 pokes you've listed are immune to hp fighting

but yea, it hits heantran and t-tar for SE damage, so it can work

[Sprocket]

Originally Posted by Fat TrollFreak

all 3 pokes you've listed are immune to hp fighting

That's exactly why I listed them. Except those three, Articuno would have practically neutral coverage across the entire metagame with Ice Beam/Blizzard and HP Fighting. OK, and Shedinja I suppose.

[TrollFreak]

whoops, my mistake

[cartercr]

Would a support set of Blizzard, Tailwind, Roost, Protect with a Charti Berry or maybe Sitrus Berry be viable? That would help keep Tailwind up while being able to spam Blizzard thanks to Roost.

[Sprocket]

Originally Posted by Fat cartercr

Would a support set of Blizzard, Tailwind, Roost, Protect with a Charti Berry or maybe Sitrus Berry be viable? That would help keep Tailwind up while being able to spam Blizzard thanks to Roost.

I just don't see it worth its own moveset compared to what's there already.

[R Inanimate]

A few things of note:

-Blizzard has an 19% chance of freezing at least one opponent Pokemon, provided that both of them survive the attack and hail is active, not ~30%.

-HP Flying hits all Fighting-types, except for Terrakion, harder than using Blizzard/Ice Beam

-Timid Articuno will usually outrun Kingdra outside of rain, as they almost always run a Modest nature, likewise I think that Dragonites and Togekiss also don't invest in speed EVs too often (and Togekiss will probably be scarfed if it does) so you may want to change your thinking a bit for the reasoning behind the EVs

-Although Abomasnow is aprreciated for Hail Support, it should be noted that does lead to doubling up on Fire and Rock weakness on the team, and thus require some caution in battle

-Flash Fire doesn't provide Special Attack boosts, it just increases the power of the Pokemon's Fire-type moves

-Dual Screens set looks decent, but probably could use a bit more in the AC with regards to partners. eg. Hitmontop can provide Intimidate and Fake Out support while Articuno can get its screens set up

-Terrakion probably deserves a mention as a Counter, as it hits about as hard as Tyranitar with Rock Slide and outruns Articuno

[Sprocket]

Made changes based on feedback.

I changed the main set to Modest, with just enough speed EVs to outspeed the standard Dragonite sets (all which use 52 Speed EVs and Adamant/Modest natures). Full 252 Speed EVs just to speed tie with Modest Kingdra now seems like a waste. Honestly there isn't much that Articuno can threaten with its base 85 speed. And like you said, if Togekiss is speed invested it's probably scarfed too.

[gec]

Double Screen set should be called Dual Screens, and the screens should be move 1 and move 2, with attacking move and addition support move being 3rd and 4th as such:

name: Dual Screens
move 1: Reflect
move 2: Light Screen
move 3: Ice Beam / Blizzard
move 4: Protect / Roost
item: Light Clay / Charti Berry
nature: Bold
evs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe

[Sprocket]

So apparently Articuno can learn Hurricane in B2W2. This changes things!

Expect a rewrite.

[Solace*]

B2W2 stuff won't be relevant for VGC 12 as far as we know.

It won't be available worldwide until the fall, when this season will already be over.

[Sprocket]

Originally Posted by Fat Solace

B2W2 stuff won't be relevant for VGC 12 as far as we know.

It won't be available worldwide until the fall, when this season will already be over.

It's easy enough to trade a Pokemon from BW to B2W2, learn a move tutor move or level up move, and trade it back to BW. No? Worldwide distribution or not, it is available.

[Biosci]

Yes, but any mons with bw2 exclusive moves won't be allowed for use at nationals(unsure about worlds allowing them or not)

[Sprocket]

I'm releasing this VGC2012 analysis to anyone that wants to give it a crack. It's just not a very good Pokémon in VGC unless it has access to Hurricane (which according to Solace is not legal in VGC2012).