Stoutland

Abilities

• Intimidate
• Sand Rush
• Scrappy

Notable Moves

• Return
• Superpower
• Wild Charge
• Pursuit
• Crunch
• Fire Fang
• Ice Fang
• Thunder Wave
• Howl
• Roar

Even with Cinccino's departure, NU still has a plethora of powerful Normal-type Physical attackers, such as Zangoose, Tauros, Kangaskhan, what does Stoutland have over these threats? Scrappy is shared by Kangaskhan. Intimidate is shared by Tauros. Could Sand Rush be viable in a tier where Sand Stream is banned? What other sets could Stoutland possibly use? Discuss!

I would love to test out a Sandstorm team down here in NU but there are few Pokemon that could abuse it well. I feel a core team including Armaldo and Duosion/Kadabra would be popular with Sandstorm, but Sandstorm doesn't seem very reliable in NU and Sand Rush is so much better with permanent sand. I think this once powerful upper tier 'mon may be laid to waste in the deep, dark depths of NU with other forgotten Pokemon.

I loved using Stoutland in-game though :p

Stoutland really wishes it could set up it's own Sandstorm, it's not worth the effort to have someone else do it for him

EDIT: Stoutland is at least a better Intimidate user than Tauros, with much better bulk all around and Thunder Wave. Granbull is probably a more relevant competitor.

I'm pretty sure that Stoutland will be used more in OU than in NU. It has nice bulk, but if I want a bulky tanky normal type I'm always gonna choose Sap Sipper Miltank, CB/SD Lickilicky or Kangaskhan. This thing's gonna rot down with stuff like Pidgeot and Dustox. It may have some kind of niche with Manual Sandstorm, that Regirock could possibly also use, but I don't see that working well.

Stoutland, in theory, could be used as a pretty potent sweeper. A work up substitute set with return and ice fang could work pretty well actually! Or maybe a return and superpower! So...

Stoutland @ leftovers
Trait: Scrappy

Substitute
Work up
Return
Superpower

Superpower is there for rocks or steels, Return for everything else. You'll want to try not to use superpower since it does lower attack one stage but if you only use it once for the rock or steel type on their team or maybe twice if they have 2 then you should boost enough to still have 1 boost up!

Notable Moves

• Return
• Superpower
• Wild Charge
• Pursuit
• Crunch
• Fire Fang
• Ice Fang
• Thunder Wave
• Work Up

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just a little nitpick there, work up should be replaced with howl because punishment miltank (which is very rare but does get some usage for mushy) will do more damage to it than if it would run howl. stoutland wont be using any special moves anyways so he won't miss that satk boost. (but he is outclassed by most normal types anyways..) also howl and work up aren't that great to begin with.

anyways, first of all, offensive stoutland is directly outclassed by zangoose, swellow, tauros and god even linoone. also stoutland in sandstorm? that sounds horrible lol. the only 'niche' that stoutland could have over all the better normal types would be an intimidate status-inducing defensive set, as it can learn yawn, t-wave (lol snarl) and possibly can run roar. but then again his average defenses and typing let him down as he resists nothing. he only has an immunity to ghosts which are generally not too common anyways. really, this is all that stoutland could *POSSIBLY* accomplish. miltank could perform this role too as he has access to reliable recovery, better physical defense and also having a niche in thick fat..

tl;dr: stoutland is generally a bad pokemon imo and shouldnt get any usage besides maybe a defensive set. he has poor coverage (and with that i mean non-STAB moves with low base power such as the elemental fangs) and also not a brilliant attack stat, which makes him outclassed by the majority of the normal types in the tier.

Stoutland is outclassed by all the other Normal-Types. We discussed this on the IRC a couple of days ago, and all it can really run is maybe a Intimidate set, but that's outclassed by Granbull. Specially Defensive is outclassed by Lickilicky and Miltank, Physical attacker is outclassed by Zangoose and Tauros, Special Attacker is outclassed by pretty much everything. It has some nice bulk, so really, all it can do is the defensive set.

If Stoutland is doing anything in this metagame it is a parashuffler set. Stoutland's has certain advantages over Granbull and Miltank that allow the physically defensive Intimidate set to function. Stoutland has all-around better bulk than Granbull with 85/90/90 compared to Granbull's 90/75/60 and Miltank lacks a phazing move.

Stoutland (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Thunder Wave
- Roar
- Return
- Crunch / Toxic

Thunder Wave and Roar allow Stoutland to try and paralyze an opponent's whole team so that strong, but slow Pokemon and ravage. Return is for STAB and Crunch allows Stoutland to hit Ghost-type Pokemon, primarily Haunter and Golurk who can get around Thunder Wave. Sadly this set lacks a lot of power and cannot break past Ground-type Pokemon such as Piloswine and Golem who can easily switch in and prevent Stoutland from parashuffling. For this reason Toxic is slashed with Crunch to shorten Ground-type Pokemon's life span, but makes Stoutland struggle more against Haunter.

Either way this set is major set up fodder for Stealth Rock and Spikes users and Stoutland in general shouldn't really get much outside of teams that in a desperate need of a parashuffler. Its bulk with Intimidate is really great though I'll give it that.

I think you guys are writing off Stoutland a little to quickly. He could be a very useful addition to a normal-type spam team. Personally I plan on using him as a partner to CB Kangaskhan, he is slightly stronger and has some cool attacks to work with, like Pursuit and Crunch.

I don't think Stoutland will be great my any means, but intimidate + strong Returns are enough to make it usable alongside Tauros and Kangaskhan. Now if youre using any offensive Stoutland as your only normal-type, you're probably doing it wrong.

I also think EBeast's parashuffler set also has potential, Twave is always a great attack. I can't really comment on it because ive never seen it, I plan on trying it out though :)

Stoutland is pretty good, I think he can work wonderful on a Tailwind-based team, because it's good bulk, good attack, and pretty decent speed (thus, not needing to invest on EV's at all). He had some good use with sand, too, there are some good setters for sand like Probopass, and Stoutland doesn't need of too many turns to actually sweep a whole team with it, he can also work a good cleaner with Tailwind or Sand support, depending of what ability are you using.

On the EBeast set looks good, too, but I could rather use Toxic and Scrappy, Intimidate helps to switch-in, but it's situational at best, while with Scrappy you have almost perfect coverage, just failing at hands of Rock or Steel Pokémon; Steel is rare here, so, it's not a problem at all, while with Rock you can just Toxic them and switch-out. Return is almost as powered as Crunch is with it's SE, so, Scrappy + Return only offers an almost identical coverage. If you're handling Rock-Type Pokémon with other Pokémon already, you can forgoe Toxic and just put Substitute or Protect on it, for extra healing while you're shufling, or for ease prediction and prevent some status on yourself.

Taking in account Fighthing-Type attacks are common on NU, I could rather put a Chople Berry on it's set, because while you're shufling the odds you'll get a Pokémon with Superpower or Close Combat are high, so, a Chople Berry could help you to paralize the faster users, and roar the slowers. Leaftovers heal is great, taking in account you're not having any heal move, but you'll increse the odds of a succesful parashufling with a Chople Berry.

the problem of stoutland in sandstorm is that he still lacks the power. CB can be used to fix this, but the diversity of typing in the tier is pretty big, and you dont want to be locked into the wrong move. (f.e. thunder fang vs musharna switch in) spamming CB returns in sandstorm though can be fun once all the rock and ghost types are gone.

EBeasts stoutland does seem to be a perfect switch in to physical scarfers which lack the power to simply do something to max/max stoutland at -1. i'm excited to test him out since i never used a parashuffling set in NU and stoutland seems to fit that role better than dragonair, but i'll guess we'll just have to test it and wait for zarel to implement the changes.

I agree with Constantinipple. The thing with manual Rain and Sun were that you could spam boosted attacks and have monsters with their speed doubled, so you could hit hard and fast. Hail was good because it gave you a 120 BP move with perfect accuracy and hail was auto-induced. But sand has none of those benefits. Stoutland gets no attack boost and has no attacks that are as high a BP as moves spammed in other weather teams (Hydro Pump, Fire Blast, Blizzard, Thunder). Even worse for a Stoutland set designed for sand is that unlike things like Sunny Day Exeggutor or Rain Dance Ludicoo, Stoutland can't bring its own Sandstorm, so you'd have to have a Stoutand and a seperate Sand setter, then get Stoutland in, using up a turn of Sand. Which brings you to the fact that there are no powerful moves for Stoutland to spam in Sand, and its base 100 attack is good but not great, meaning that a CB would likely be needed to fix this, but then it's easy for the opponent to predict around Stoutland and force you to waste more sand turns. A LO set would probably be the best option, but it probably wouldnt be powerful enough to break through most walls w/o more support.
I think that EBeast's set is probably the best course of action for anyone desiring to use Stoutland over another Normal-Type in the tier, although I'm curious as to exactly what sort of teams would take advantage of it (never used a parashuffler, so I'm just wondering).

Teams that benefit the most from Parashufflers would be ones with strong, but slow Pokemon such as Choice Band or Specs Pokemon like Braviary, Exeggutor, and Golurk. These teams take advantage of the opposing Pokemon being slowed down to make it much harder for the opponent to be able to handle their strong attackers. Offensive teams are devastated by this strategy as they don't have the bulk to retaliate against these strong attackers. Parashufflers become less useful as their team faces bulkier archetypes like Bulky Offense or Stall where the CB/Specs abusers are already fast enough to outspeed most Pokemon.

you could run a sand team with a sand rush stoutland/sand force gigalaith cor and it would be offensive

littlelucario said:

you could run a sand team with a sand rush stoutland/sand force gigalaith cor and it would be offensive

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This has been mentioned before if you would have looked at all the posts in the thread. The reason that Sand Rush Stoutland is not a good strategy is because you need a secondary Pokemon to set up Sandstorm. Stoutland itself struggles with the popularity of Rock-type Pokemon and Gigalith is not a very reliably abuser as its Speed hinders it severely. Stoutland and Gigalith are basically the only abusers of Sandstorm, and not very good at that. Making a dedicated Sandstorm team will make you very weak to common Pokemon such as Sawk, Ludicolo, Samurott, Gurudrr, and Golurk, without much of a benefit. An NU Sand's stopping power is nowhere near the level of Rain or Sun teams who have more abusers and gain other boosts from their weathers such as the 1.5x boost to Water- and Fire-type attacks. If you go with only Stoutland and Gigalith then you are essentially wasting some Pokemon slots as both cannot stand by themselves and will nothing more than a minor annoyance on an opponent's team. Stoutland itself is not hard to stop with Rock-type Pokemon and Gurdurr lurking in every corner.

I've already posted my thoughts on Stoutland, so here ya go :]

TheCanadianWifier said:

Super excited for Stoutland finally dropping (I've been waiting so patiently for it to fall) because NU finally gets a bulky normal type with access to Roar, to prevent it from becoming set-up fodder *cough* Miltank *cough*. Seriously, Miltank is cursed with a movepool that has everything it could ever want - except for a phazing move.
Anyways, I've been running a set of:

Hide

Stoutland (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 236 HP / 252 Def / 20 SDef
Impish Nature
- Return
- Toxic
- Substitute
- Roar

and it's working out amazing. Its basically a defensive Miltank but with Substitute over Milk Drink. Also, because Stoutland's a generic normal-type, the stat spread is relatively balanced. It boasts a decent Base 85 HP, some very nice natural bulk (which becomes even more impressive with investment), a Base 100 Attack (even un-invested, STAB Returns still hurt), and it's relatively fast for a wall, with base 80 speed. Wish support from Alomomola makes it really difficult to break through. On the offensive, it gets access to Scrappy, so a banded set with Return/Superpower/Crunch/filler could be viable and fun to try as well.

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In response to your thoughts on the offensive set, I'm not sure why you'd use it when Kangaskhan is in the tier. It gets Double Edge, Sucker Punch, better speed, and some recovery from Drain Punch, so I doubt Superpower and 5 more attack is enough to give it a niche over it.

Audiosurfer said:

In response to your thoughts on the offensive set, I'm not sure why you'd use it when Kangaskhan is in the tier. It gets Double Edge, Sucker Punch, better speed, and some recovery from Drain Punch, so I doubt Superpower and 5 more attack is enough to give it a niche over it.

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Oh man, how could I forget about Kanga? Yeah, as long as the kangaroo mother remains in NU, Stoutland will definitely be overshadowed, for good reason. However, I feel it still has a small niche as a banded normal. Kanga and Tauros should generally run lifeorb, and Braviary is SR weak, limiting its switch-ins. It isn't much, but Stoutland is able to function as a banded hit-and-run poke, with access to pursuit and the fangs. It also gets Wild Charge to hit Alomomola. It's not a top-tier wall-breaker by any means, but I feel it certainly has it merits.

Actually, both Kangaskhan and Tauros can run viable CB sets. Tauros even has one in its analysis onsite iirc, and plenty good players have attested to the viability of CB Kangaskhan (example here), so while their LO sets are more popular, their CB sets are by no means overshadowed by Stoutland.
And in response to your statements about the things CB Stoutland can hit:

252+ Atk Choice Band Stoutland Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 224-264 (41.94 - 49.43%) -- 28.91% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
^Pretty small chance to 2HKO given that rocks are up, a super effective move, CB, and an Adamant nature, so it's not going to be beating Alomomola most of the time.

252+ Atk Choice Band Stoutland Pursuit vs. 240 HP / 252+ Def Musharna: 192-228 (44.34 - 52.65%) -- 88.28% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
^How much Pursuit's doing if Musharna switches out. And as for the fangs, I can't think of many notable targets those are hitting seeing as most of the things hit super-effectively by them are being hit about as hard by a neutral Return anyways, certainly not enough for it to be considered over Tauros or Kangaskhan.

Here's my favorite set on him so far:


Stoutland @Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate

Roar
Facade/Return
Rest
Sleep Talk

Nature: [/b]Impish[/b]
252 HP
4 Atk
252 Def

With full defensive investment and Intimidate, we know Stoutland is quite bulky. Outmatched by Lickilicky and Miltank for sure, but bulky nontheless. Roar is the one thing he can utilize that they can't. Also, firing off STAB, sleep-boosted Facades, Stoutland does considerable damage even without investment. Stoutland's base 100 Attack stat is one of his other few advantages over Miltank and Lickilicky. Like any other RestTalk shuffler, he pairs well with good rockers/spikers/tspikers. Conveniently, Roselia, a very reliable spiker and tspiker, fell to NU along with him. This set is, however, severely aching for Body Slam.

Even with full defensive investment and rest, Stoutland is easily overwhelmed by strong Fighting attacks if he doesn't get his Intimidate off, which is an issue since everything carries Superpower these days. Also, if this set has been fully scouted, smart users of SubPunch Golurk will realize they can safely throw a risk-free Focus Punch no matter what you do with this set. Focus Punch has a higher priority than Roar and obviously Facade/Return won't touch Golurk without Scrappy. The worst case scenario for Golurk is taking a Sleep Talked Roar (unless its running a weird 252 Speed set it won't outspeed uninvested Stoutland).

Obviously, he'll want a Ghost-type teammate to take those Fighting attacks for him.



TL;DR wait for him to drop down to PU and use him there as a premier Choice Bander.

Except Tauros has been PU for-goddamn-ever for some mind boggling reason, so Stoutland would even be outclassed there =/

I've never used Stoutland outside of Sandstorm, mostly because, unless it's CB as a wall breaker, it doesn't have that access speed to really give a good sweep. Don't get me wrong; Stoutland has great potential outside these two settings I've placed him in above. But honestly, he isn't that viable anywhere else, imo. Maybe as a phazer with Roar..
Very Interesting post, btw :3