Liepard (Revamp) [QC 3/3] [GP 2/2]


Liepard


[Overview]

<p>One thing that catches your eye immediately after one look at Liepard's stats is that lime green bar amongst a plethora of reds and oranges: Liepard's blazing base 106 Speed stat. With this, Liepard occupies the position of NU's second fastest Dark-type, losing only to Sneasel. Combined with a fantastic typing and extensive support movepool, along with access to boosting moves such as Nasty Plot and the ability Prankster, Liepard becomes a very underrated threat. Liepard also has two other great abilities in Limber and Unburden, allowing it to function in a variety of roles. Base 88 Special Attack, which seems mediocre at best, is quite threatening when used in conjunction with Nasty Plot; however, here is where Liepard's seemingly impressive résumé comes to a screeching halt. Paper-thin 64 / 50 / 50 defenses make Liepard unable to take any strong attack it doesn't resist. Liepard also lacks any reliable recovery outside of Rest, meaning it will have trouble supporting the team for long periods of time. Fellow Dark-types Absol, Cacturne, and even Mightyena outclass Liepard offensively due to higher attacking stats. However, while its stats may not make it look the part, Liepard is a versatile Pokemon that is able to fill many positions and should be considered when building your team.</p>

[SET]
name: Nasty Plot Sweeper
move 1: Nasty Plot
move 2: Encore / Taunt
move 3: Dark Pulse
move 4: Hidden Power Fighting
item: Life Orb / Leftovers
ability: Prankster
nature: Modest
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>While Liepard's mediocre base 88 Special Attack may not seem appealing at first, a single Nasty Plot boost raises Liepard's Special Attack to a whopping 604, from which point Liepard has no trouble sweeping. Running Prankster is the best choice for this set, as Liepard can squeeze in a Nasty Plot before Murkrow Taunts it, winning the Prankster priority war thanks to its higher speed. With Encore, Liepard can also switch into a weather sweeper or other set-up sweepers, lock them into their set up move, and then proceed to set up and sweep, getting at least one guaranteed boost while the opponent switches out. Taunt can also be used for similar reasons, but Encore is preferred due to the almost guaranteed switch.</p>

<p>Dark Pulse is the primary STAB move in this set, with a solid 80 Base Power and, as an added bonus, a 20% flinch rate. Hidden Power Fighting is used to hit Steel-types which otherwise wall Liepard and put an end to its fun. Also, with Dark Pulse and Hidden Power Fighting, Liepard has perfect coverage in NU, hitting every Pokemon for at least neutral damage.</p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

<p>Prankster is the best ability to run on this set, but Limber can also be used, as Liepard outspeeds a lot of NU, and therefore some might argue that having an immunity to paralysis is much more useful than Prankster priority. The EVs for this set are pretty straightforward; maximize Special Attack to make the most out of Liepard's base 88 Special Attack, max out Speed, and dump the rest in HP. Running Modest to have Liepard hit harder is the best idea, as making the most out of mediocre base 88 offenses is essential. However, if you are worried about getting outsped, you can run Timid, but that is generally frowned upon, as Liepard's attacks won't be as strong.</p>

<p>Liepard greatly appreciates hazard support; having Stealth Rock and, if possible, Spikes, will give Liepard an easier time taking out threats such as Regice after Stealth Rock. Running Life Orb gives you a nice power boost, but Liepard is frail as is, so you can run Leftovers instead if you don’t like Life Orb's recoil. Thanks to its typing, Emboar makes a good offensive partner that can take out Steel-types quickly. Liepard is immune to Emboar's Psychic weakness, giving the two of them good synergy. Another good teammate is Golurk; it resists everything Liepard is weak to and can keep the momentum going.</p>

[SET]
name: Weather Supporter
move 1: Sunny Day / Rain Dance
move 2: Thunder Wave
move 3: Encore / Taunt
move 4: U-turn
item: Heat Rock / Damp Rock
ability: Prankster
nature: Sassy
evs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
ivs: 0 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>Prankster is arguably the best ability Liepard has; the +1 priority on Liepard's extensive support movepool makes Liepard a great choice for setting up weather and crippling opponents. Liepard is the fastest Pokemon in NU with access to Prankster, and it abuses this well. Liepard can lock an opponent, such as Shell Smash Gorebyss, into a set up move with Encore. It can also run Taunt if you don't want to risk a bad prediction situation, but Encore is preferred. Thunder Wave is used to cripple sweepers, and is also there to nullify other threats. With three-fourths of this set's moves at +1 priority, Liepard needs no Speed EVs. In fact, it is running a negative speed nature and IV spread to abuse its last move, U-turn, to its full extent. Liepard will almost always go last when using U-turn, allowing its replacement to get a free switch-in while also dealing a bit of damage. However, if you are worried about Liepard getting hurt, you can switch out normally to something that can take the hit.</p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

<p>Liepard may not be the best option for weather support on your team. Volbeat, a fellow Prankster user, has access not only to weather moves, but the highly coveted Tail Glow, which it can Baton Pass. However, with Volbeat comes a lower Speed, a weaker typing, and a crippling weakness to Stealth Rock, which makes Liepard a better choice in that respect.</p>

<p>The given EVs make Liepard as specially bulky as possible. Special Defense is maxed out, as Liepard will be switching into and mostly dealing with Ghost- and Psychic-type Pokemon, who are primarily specially based attackers. That being said, Liepard is devastatingly frail, even with maximum HP investment, so if you mispredicted and let your opponent set up, Liepard is pretty much dead even after Thunder Wave, as any strong STAB move, when boosted, is an almost guaranteed OHKO.</p>

<p>Good teammates are entirely dependent on the type of weather you are using. For sun, Chlorophyll sweepers like Vileplume and Exeggutor are good options, as well as Solar Power Charizard, while for rain, Swift Swim users like Beartic and Mantyke are good options. Ghost-types such as Misdreavus cover all of Liepard's weaknesses, so they are good choices to use as well.</p>

[Other Options]

<p>Liepard is a really versatile pokemon, filling a variety of roles. However, lacking Baton Pass, it cannot pass Nasty Plot boosts, or anything else for that matter. With its high Speed, a Choice item set looks good, but a poor attacking movepool squashes this idea. Liepard can try to utilize one of its other abilities, Unburden, with a Dark Gem-boosted Dark Pulse, to hit for decent damage. However, this gets rid of Prankster, which is best suited for Liepard due to its extensive support movepool. An extremely annoying Prankster set Liepard can run is one with Thunder Wave, Swagger, Foul Play, and either Substitute or Encore, using it to stop momentum and screw up special attackers, with Foul Play there to check physical attackers. For sweeping, Liepard can use Hone Claws and Sucker Punch to go the physical route, but is usually better off with Nasty Plot. Foul Play is a strong STAB move that can punish the likes of Armaldo, Braviary, and Beartic. Liepard has a very good support movepool, though; it can run Yawn to force switches, Fake Tears to help an incoming sweep, or Knock Off to render Eviolite Pokemon useless, though it should be noted that Liepard gets no Prankster priority on Knock Off.</p>

[Checks and Counters]

<p>Liepard is by no means unbeatable. Pokemon faster than Liepard, such as Tauros, Electrode, Cinccino, and Swellow, can outspeed and proceed to OHKO it, though they risk being hit by Thunder Wave. Liepard will also get wrecked by any Fighting-type, namely Gurdurr and Sawk, who will OHKO or 2HKO Liepard with Close Combat or Drain Punch. Liepard also takes super effective damage from Armaldo's STAB X-Scissor. While Liepard is not specifically weak to any hazards, it is vulnerable to all of them, and this can be used against it. Specific walls to Liepard include Probopass, Bastiodon, Regirock, Regice, and Lickilicky, due to their massive bulk and ability to take a super effective Hidden Power Fighting.</p>
 
Why don't you do the revamp rather than just one set? Liepard has yet to be revamped since it got new options in BW2, so the analysis as a whole is heavily outdated. I'd put Nasty Plot / Encore / Dark Pulse / Hidden Power Fighting Liepard before the weather supporter set.

I haven't looked at that set much yet, but I'm wondering why you're running 252 Speed EVs. Seems like a waste when 3/4 of your moves are +1 priority and you can better spend your Speed EVs into Defense/Special Defense EVs. Also, fast U-turn isn't really all that great; I'd much prefer a slow U-turn/Baton Pass as you get something in for free. That's much more important than getting Liepard out without it taking damage (which you could always do by switching out). So you basically get two options: you could either "slow" U-turn out so a sweeper or whatever can get in safely or you could switch out so Liepard is not damaged.
 
Added everything you said.

I //might be able to do the revamp, not sure if I have enough time. I'll do that after this set is complete, so I don't have to do it all at once (and once I start the revamp, I don't need to get this through qc and gp again)
 
Added everything you said.

I //might be able to do the revamp, not sure if I have enough time. I'll do that after this set is complete, so I don't have to do it all at once (and once I start the revamp, I don't need to get this through qc and gp again)
Wouldn't it be much easier if you just did it all now? It's not that much more work than doing a single set. Plus, you save more time for the QC & GP team if you do it all now rather than do one now and the other later. I'd really appreciate it if you did the whole Liepard revamp because it desperately needs it right now.
 
Wouldn't it be much easier if you just did it all now? It's not that much more work than doing a single set. Plus, you save more time for the QC & GP team if you do it all now rather than do one now and the other later. I'd really appreciate it if you did the whole Liepard revamp because it desperately needs it right now.
Ok, I'll do that. Might take some time though.
 
I've been using this set quite a bit (with some minor differences), and it's definitely solid. I would lean towards making him entirely specially defensive, mainly since the main Pokemon Liepard is actually able to switch into and set up on a specially oriented (ie.Psychic- and Ghost-types). Also, as DTC mentions, a slow U-Turn is much better for frail weather-based sweepers to get a free switch, I personally ran Sassy w/0 Speed IVs most of the time for that exact purpose. I'd also give mention to Knock Off and Foul Play over Thunder Wave, since most weather abusers are outpacing the opponent either way, making paralysis support somewhat unnecessary in most cases. Knock Off is generally a useful utility in this metagame in general right now, and ruins stuff like Gurdurr on switch-in, whereas Foul Play is a good option for hitting anything for good damage.
 
I've been using this set quite a bit (with some minor differences), and it's definitely solid. I would lean towards making him entirely specially defensive, mainly since the main Pokemon Liepard is actually able to switch into and set up on a specially oriented (ie.Psychic- and Ghost-types). Also, as DTC mentions, a slow U-Turn is much better for frail weather-based sweepers to get a free switch, I personally ran Sassy w/0 Speed IVs most of the time for that exact purpose. I'd also give mention to Knock Off and Foul Play over Thunder Wave, since most weather abusers are outpacing the opponent either way, making paralysis support somewhat unnecessary in most cases. Knock Off is generally a useful utility in this metagame in general right now, and ruins stuff like Gurdurr on switch-in, whereas Foul Play is a good option for hitting anything for good damage.
Having paralysis is necessary to cripple the opponent (ie smash gorebyss) for liepards replacement. Plus liepard gets no priority on foul play or knock off.

Other than that I added everything else you said.
 

ebeast

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Just posting to say that another route you can take is making the Weather Supporter's spread 248 HP / 200 SpD / 60 Spe with a Careful nature which gives Liepard about as much special bulk as it has with max Special Defense but now with the added Speed EVs Liepard reaches 263 Speed. This allows Liepard to successfully Encore a Swords Dance Samurott into Swords Dance as before Samurott could just outprioritize you with +2 Aqua Jet.

I also originally had a bit about you changing the set from Sassy to Careful, but then saw DTC's post about having a slow U-turn, which is understandable.
 
I'm not sure if I get what you say...

Won't it have +1 priority encore which willl lock Samurott into Swords Dance first, since Swords Dance has no priority?

.... Also, this needs some QC love...
 
A lot of you are probably about to lose all respect for me, but Liepard is probably the only pokemon in the game that can run an effective annoyer set: hear me out.

The move set is Thunder Wave / Swagger / Foul Play / Substitute or Encore and a SpD spread. I'll give you a moment to go throw up.

This can come in on a special Pokemon that fears paralysis or encore, and set up a sub. From there, you can cause a serious problem to your opponent. Special threats can be para fused with impunity and sub stalled, while physical threats face Foul Play. Swagger / Foul Play can break any wall eventually, and in fact surprisingly quickly, so you can actually apply significant pressure. The risk factor of Swagger is mitigated by t wave ( or encore ) but if the oppont has a tough Ground-type then only use it from behind a sub.

As with any set that fishes for ~ 60% rolls, you are at the mercy of the RNG, so it will occasionally fail you. Still, in terms of how often the set does or doesn't pull its weight, I think it is effective enough, especially for a sub nu like Liepard. It's also pretty much unique to Liepard; only Murkrow can do something similar but can't use Encore or use sub effectively thanks to a lack of lefties.
 
A lot of you are probably about to lose all respect for me, but Liepard is probably the only pokemon in the game that can run an effective annoyer set: hear me out.

The move set is Thunder Wave / Swagger / Foul Play / Substitute or Encore and a SpD spread. I'll give you a moment to go throw up.

This can come in on a special Pokemon that fears paralysis or encore, and set up a sub. From there, you can cause a serious problem to your opponent. Special threats can be para fused with impunity and sub stalled, while physical threats face Foul Play. Swagger / Foul Play can break any wall eventually, and in fact surprisingly quickly, so you can actually apply significant pressure. The risk factor of Swagger is mitigated by t wave ( or encore ) but if the oppont has a tough Ground-type then only use it from behind a sub.

As with any set that fishes for ~ 60% rolls, you are at the mercy of the RNG, so it will occasionally fail you. Still, in terms of how often the set does or doesn't pull its weight, I think it is effective enough, especially for a sub nu like Liepard. It's also pretty much unique to Liepard; only Murkrow can do something similar but can't use Encore or use sub effectively thanks to a lack of lefties.
I see where you're coming from but I don't think I get it enough to really write a whole thing for it D:

Maybe you can do it if this gets checked and put up soon?
 

erisia

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This analysis looks pretty comprehensive. I haven't used Liepard before personally, but I realise that it's become a much more viable threat now that it can use Dark Pulse + HP Fighting, both from experience and discussion with other users. The Prankster Weather set also looks good for the reasons you stated.

I can also verify that the annoyer set is extremely effective, almost to the point of frustration. Sure, it's luck dependent, but once Liepard comes into a favourable situation (vs defensive Pokemon, Psychic type, etc) it can seize momentum very quickly and completely disrupt your opponent's strategy. If you don't want to write it up due to lack of experience, that's understandable, but I'd like to see someone pose it to QC at some point, and a significant OO mention in the meantime.

The only thing I don't really get ss why you find Nasty Plot Liepard needing Rapid Spin support. No spinner in the tier intersects with sweeper Liepard's playstyle, and Liepard isn't any more vulnerable to entry hazards than most other attackers. I would remove the mention of Rapid Spin support for brevity's sake.

Other than that, QC APPROVED 1/3
 
hmm this looks good, not sure about this though:

unburden -- you mention restochesto as a means of activating it. if one would want to utilize unburden, dark gem would probably be the best option. rest really doesn't accomplish anything on liepard, while dark gem dark pulse could probably hit something decently hard.

also, something i want qc to weigh in on before this gets fully qc'd -- limber vs prankster on nasty plot liepard. lets face it -- prankster isn't that great on np liepard. it's already pretty fast so there aren't many instances where priority encore saves your ass. i think limber deserves a secondary slash on the np set because a paralysis immunity is always helpful.
 
Good job on this skeleton Shelmet :)

Prankster should definitely be the main(and only ability) on the NP set, since priority Encore is helpful for other purposes as well. Both are situational, but since Thunder Wave is a pretty rare move in NU, the only time Limber will be useful is random paralysis from Thunderbolt(yay no static).

Prankster, on the other hand, allows you to Mantine, anything that boosts Speed and come out on top!

expand on teammates a little bit(few more offensive partners) and

[qc]2/3[/qc]
 

Django

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Yeah being able to Encore weather sweepers (among other things) is a much more useful niche than avoiding T-Wave, but Limber should still be mentioned somewhere here.

[qc]3/3[/qc]
 
Prankster should definitely be the main(and only ability) on the NP set, since priority Encore is helpful for other purposes as well. Both are situational, but since Thunder Wave is a pretty rare move in NU, the only time Limber will be useful is random paralysis from Thunderbolt(yay no static).
Paralysis is quite common in NU. I'm not really sure where you get the fact that it's rare from? You also forgot about Stun Spore and, to a lesser extent, Body Slam. There are plenty of good Thunder Wave users in NU that use it fairly often and can utilize the move well:

Amoonguss, Miltank, Exeggutor, Musharna, Probopass, and Regirock come to mind. There are plenty more out there. I would argue that paralysis is even more common than weather. You're terribly wrong about the only way you're going to get paralyzed is by Thunderbolt -- you only get paralyzed by that once in a blue moon.
 

Django

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Well, Amoonguss and Exeggutor rarely use Stun Spore (Amoonguss should use it more), Musharna only uses T-Wave on a purely defensive set and Probopass is...average. Miltank and Regirock I will agree with, but Liepard should be going nowhere near them anyway, as it cannot switch into them, and even after a boost it still gets wrecked. So basically the ONLY reason to use Limber would be switching into Probopass, and its not like Probopass is a hard Pokemon to switch in on.

Amooonguss - Stun Spore = 18.924%
Exeggutor - Stun Spore < 3.527%
Miltank - Body Slam = 72.477%
Musharna - Thunder Wave = 8.065%
Probopass - Thunder Wave = 58.241%
Regirock - Thunder Wave = 50.195%
 
Well, Amoonguss and Exeggutor rarely use Stun Spore (Amoonguss should use it more), Musharna only uses T-Wave on a purely defensive set and Probopass is...average. Miltank and Regirock I will agree with, but Liepard should be going nowhere near them anyway, as it cannot switch into them, and even after a boost it still gets wrecked. So basically the ONLY reason to use Limber would be switching into Probopass, and its not like Probopass is a hard Pokemon to switch in on.
Musharna is one of the best Pokemon for Liepard to Encore and set up on. One of the only things it fears from Musharna is Signal Beam and Thunder Wave; with Limber, it does not have to worry about the situation where Musharna has Thunder Wave. Prankster was mentioned as a nice way to Encore weather sweepers. Problem is Liepard has absolutely no business with them besides Exeggutor; the can all easily OHKO Liepard with their STAB move. There isn't even that many weather sweepers that outspeed Liepard in their respective weather that set up weather themselves -- off the top of my head the list is Ludicolo, Mantine, Seismitoad, and Exeggutor. That's really not a lot. On one hand, the weather sweepers that use their weather move have said move more often; on the other hand, there are many more Pokemon with paralysis-inducing attacks in NU. They are about equal, but because of Ludicolo being so common right now, I think Limber should be slashed after Prankster.
 

Django

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I'm willing to bet the combined usage of Miltank with Body Slam, Probopass and Regirock with T-Wave is less than that off Ludicolo Mantine Seismitoad and Eggy wth their respective weather moves. Honestly, Musharna carries Thunder Wave just 8% of the time, and is used less than Ludicolo.

And Liepard can switch into weather sweepers much more easily than it can the aforementioned Pokemon. The weather Pokemon will always need to set up their weather; something Liepard can take advantage of by switching in. Yes this can become a 50 / 50 play, but only if your opponent realises whats happening. As for switching in on Musharna, there is so much more than just T-Wave it has to worry about. Signal Beam is an issue like you mentioned, as is HP Fighting, and hell it can even dry pass straight out. All of these are more likely than Thunder Wave. You are overstating the amount of paralysis inducers in NU.
 
I'm willing to bet the combined usage of Miltank with Body Slam, Probopass and Regirock with T-Wave is less than that off Ludicolo Mantine Seismitoad and Eggy wth their respective weather moves.
Of course when you compare a really small sample to a different full sample, the combined usage of the small sample is much less. Ludicolo, Mantine, Seismitoad, and Exeggutor are pretty much the only good weather sweepers that can set up weather themselves. There are plenty of Pokemon with Thunder Wave, Stun Spore, or hell if you are some real fuckin' baller, there is also Body Slam, Discharge, and Thunder(bolt) that you can switch into.

We have argued enough about Prankster Encore's uses against weather sweepers -- is there anything else besides something like Volbeat that Prankster Encore is actually useful for?

Surely slashing Limber after Prankster is not much of a problem. Some teams appreciate Liepard's ability to fuck over weather sweepers while others may want a Pokemon that absorbs paralysis more.
 

Django

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You're not actually listening to my point; those 3 paralysis users I mentioned are about the only relevant ones in NU. All 4 of those weather sweepers are extremely relevant (and Ludicolo runs Rain Dance a lot more often than Regirock and Probopass run T-Wave...) and are exponentially more dangerous.

And no, there are not "plenty of Pokemon with Thunder Wave and Stun Spore". Here is a list of Thunder Wave users above the PU cutoff and the amount of the time they use Thunder Wave:

  • Miltank - 17.0%
  • Eelektross - 2.9%
  • Musharna - 8.0%
  • Probopass - 58.2%
  • Electrode - 8.7%
  • Regirock - 50.2%
  • Rotom-Fan - 11.4%
  • Ampharos - 6.9%
  • Regice - 53.8%
Now lets do Stun Spore (I included PU because otherwise its just Amoonguss...)

  • Amoonguss - 18.9%
  • Tangela - 5.2%
  • Butterfree - 13.7%
  • Vileplume - 6.8%
  • Bellossom - 9.7%
  • Beautifly - 3.1%
  • Yeah...
As for Body Slam, you have got Miltank and Lickilicky who use it over 50% of the time, Kangaskhan at 11%, then all the way down to Dunsparce. This is ignoring stupid shit like Body Slam Banette at 3%. Discharge has Eelektross, Rotom-Fan, Ampharos and Zebstrika, none of which use it more than 7% of the time. Besides, Liepard should under no circumstances be switching into these moves anyway, so I'm not really sure what the relevance is.

On the other hand, Rain sweepers in particular are something to worry about:

  • Ludicolo - 72%
  • Mantine - 38%
  • Seismitoad - 36%
OK you want more stuff it can do, here is a short list I put together:

  • Stop Dragon Dance Altaria
  • Stop Dragon Dance Dragonair
  • Stop Dragon Dance Fraxure
  • Anything with Dragon Dance
  • Stop Shift Gear Klang
  • Force Absol to keep using Sucker Punch
  • Stop Shell Smash Gorebyss
  • Force out Ninjask using anything but X-Scissor
  • Force out Gurdurr using Bulk Up / Payback
This is just from skimming the usage stats. I am aware it cannot switch into any of these Pokemons STAB move, but that is the case for almost any priority Encore user. If you can predict right with it, it can stop these threats, if only once. Even so, the next time they come in you can simply attack as they try to snipe Liepard on the switch, not to mention Liepard can set up as they switch out.

Considering Limber is almost completely inferior I would say yes, slashing it is a problem. Prankster has a much bigger niche, and will see much more use. Slashing it implies there is an actual decision to make between the two, when really there is not. Normally I wouldn't care but when stuff like "Paralysis is quite common" and "Stun Spore Exeggutor exists" comes out, then I am going to point it out.

Since I know someone will bring this up, yes the ladder stats do not mean everything. However, they are pretty much the best thing we have to go on in a case like this, especially considering people will be looking at these analyses to use sets on the ladder. If you do want to take a look at high level play then you'll find paralysis is just as rare, if not moreso, only Regirock and Amoonguss really see use with paralysis moves in tournament matches.

Anyway this thread has been cluttered enough by this bs, so I guess DTC can talk to me on IRC about it!! Shelmet, it's up to you whether you want to put it as a slash or in AC (or even OO), but I would reccommend OO / AC.
 

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