Spearow

[Elegy96]

#021 - Spearow
40hp / 60atk / 30 def / 31 sp.a / 31 sp.d / 75 spe
Abilities: Keen Eye / Sniper

Little Cup is a metagame filled with many powerful and swift Normal/Flying attackers, such as Taillow, Rufflet, Doduo and Starly to name but a few. So what is it that sets this little sparrow apart from the flock? It's base stats are fairly unimpressive at first glance, with only base 60 attack and 75 speed standing out. However these too are surpassed by other flyers: Taillow is faster, and Rufflet has more attack power. To add insult to injury Spearow missed out on the holy grail of flying STAB: Brave Bird.

BW2 however gave a huge gift to this little bird in Drill Run. While other Normal/Flying types struggle against Rock and Steel types that resist their STAB moves, such as Geodude and Pawniard, Spearow can shred through them with relative ease, scoring essential OHKOs and 2HKOs that other birds cannot. He also learns some nice moves in U-Turn, Pursuit and Quick Attack, giving your team momentum, trapping and priority respectively.

0insert example set here]

Discuss if Spearow has enough of an edge to compete in the current metagame, and if he is worth using over other Normal-Flying types.

(This will be edited when I have time)

[macle]

There is no reason to use Spearow when there is Taillow. Guts and Scrappy are better abilities than Sniper. Taillow reaches 19 speed while Spearow reaches mediocre 16 speed. Drill run is ok but I'd rather just U-turn out to something better and set up..

[Elegy96]

I can see many people agreeing with you that Taillow is better (to be fair he is) but Spearow does have some advantages. 16 speed isn't too bad in LC. Apart from Drill Run, Pursuit is the other edge he has over Taillow, although I guess it can be situational.
As you said Sniper is outclassed but it could come in very handy: a simple critical hit may not be enough to take down some walls.

This is the set I use on a (mediocre) hail team as a revenge killer and something to maim fighting types:

Caw (Spearow) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Sniper
EVs: 36 HP / 200 Atk / 36 Def / 36 SDef / 200 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Drill Peck
- Drill Run
- Quick Attack
- U-turn


I believe this gives him a speed of 24, enough to outpace +1 Scraggy and take him out with Drill Peck, or U-Turn out to something that checks it better (in my team's case, I use Sandshrew, who isn't a counter but has decent physical bulk)

[Ray Jay]

As macle pointed out, Speed is a vastly more important stat than that 5 extra base Attack, and Spearow kinda exemplifies this. The problem with Flying-types isn't their bad coverage, it's that they die quickly. Using Choice Scarf to lock yourself into an unstabbed Ground-type attack seems like an even surer way to bring your demise. Furthermore, Taillow also gets Pursuit, U-turn, and most importantly, has the advantage of Brave Bird. You said so yourself, Taillow is simply better.

In the future, please try to get approval from a moderator before posting a Pokemon discussion thread.

[Vader*]

Bronzor is immune and Tesshido is neutral and they're pretty much the steels you wanna hit other than maybe Magnemite, so Drill Run kinda sucks anyhow.