Solrock (UU Analysis)

Edit: Changing this to a Solrock Revamp

Status:Analysis WIP
QC Approved 2/2
http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/solrock

Plans:
- Remove Supporter and move to OO, 70/85/65 defenses aren't impressive for a supporter especially one with 6 weaknesses
- Remove Rock Polish Sweeper, (generally outclassed by Torterra, Aggron and Rhyperior)
- Remove Calm Mind
- Replace Suicide Lead with Trick Room lead and mention in AC
- Remove Choice Band




[Overview]
<p>The shift to the DPP metagame was rather unkind to Solrock. While Solrock had some uses in OU during the glory days of RSE, it's lucky to find any use in NU today. It has a unique typing and a great ability, but its plethora of weaknesses to the most commonly used attacking types and below average defenses mean that it'll usually be KOed before accomplishing much on the battlefield. That may seem like a lot of bad news, but this shouldn't deter anyone from choosing Solrock as it has access to a myriad of supporting and attacking moves, as well as a unique typing and ability that can offer useful resistances to fill specific niches in your team.</p>

[SET]
name: Rock Polish + Baton Pass
move 1: Rock Polish
move 2: Baton Pass
move 3: Stone Edge / Rock Slide
move 4: Explosion / Earthquake
item: Leftovers / Liechi Berry
nature: Impish
evs: 252 HP / 28 Def / 228 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
<p>As an offensive Rock Polisher, Solrock is generally outclassed by the likes of Torterra and Aggron, so to differentiate itself it can Baton Pass the boost to one of its teammates. This set is designed to actually take advantage of Solrock's many weaknesses; Solrock can lure out specific counters, use Rock Polish on the switch, and then proceed to Baton Pass to the appropriate teammate. The last two attacks allow Solrock to deal some damage off its decent base 95 Attack stat. Stone Edge is a stronger STAB attack, but Rock Slide can be used for its higher accuracy and chance to flinch after Solrock has used Rock Polish. Explosion is the primary option for the last slot to remove any problematic Pokemon you may encounter. Earthquake can be used in place of Explosion, which gives Solrock the great attacking combination of Rock and Ground, but with no Attack investment it'll be doing pitiful damage if it doesn't hit for super effective damage.</p>

[Additional Comments]
<p>The EVs are designed to allow Solrock to reach a Speed stat of 233, enough to just outpace max Speed Torterra. After a Rock Polish boost, he reaches a Speed stat of 466, enough to outpace Timid Choice Scarf Rotom. The rest of the EVs are placed into HP and Defense to give Solrock some bulk, and allow it to have a slight chance of surviving a Megahorn from Rhyperior.</p>

<p>Because of Solrock's many weaknesses, there is a plethora of potential teammates who can make use of Solrock's boosts while covering its weaknesses. Solrock tends to draw Water- and Grass-type attacks, especially from the two most-used Pokemon of UU, Milotic and Venusaur. So, any partner who can make use of the Speed boost Solrock provides while eliminating the aforementioned Pokemon makes a great teammate for Solrock. Life Orb Magmortar or offensive Venusaur can easily come in on Venusaur or Milotic, respectively, while boasting an increase to their average Speed thanks to the Baton Passed Rock Polish from Solrock. Drapion makes a good partner to Solrock, covering its Ghost-, Dark-, Bug- and Grass-type weaknesses and enjoying the Speed boosts it provides. As a bonus, Solrock can easily come in on any Ground-type attacks aimed at Drapion and start the cycle all over again. Some good examples of other Pokemon who appreciate Solrock's Rock Polishes include Azumarill, Octillery, Cradily, Hariyama, Medicham, and Moltres.</p>

<p>Substitute can go in the last slot to help Solrock in a number of ways. First and foremost, Substitute blocks any status attacks aimed at Solrock, particularly paralysis or burn. Secondly, Substitute protects Solrock from priority and protects its teammates from an attack as Solrock Baton Passes. Finally, Substitute can be used in succession to bring Solrock down to critical health to activate its pinch Berry in order to pass an additional boost to a teammate. Solrock isn't just limited to passing a Liechi Berry boost either; any of the pinch Berries make for a good replacement, depending on who Solrock Baton Passes to.</p>

[SET]
name: Trick Room
move 1: Trick Room
move 2: Explosion
move 3: Stealth Rock
move 4: Stone Edge / Zen Headbutt
item: Leftovers / Focus Sash
nature: Brave
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
ivs: 0 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
<p>As a Trick Room user, Solrock offers a unique array of qualities that separate it from its fellow Trick Room-using brethren. Solrock's biggest advantage is its access to Explosion and Stealth Rock. With Explosion, Solrock is able to set up Trick Room, explode on whatever unfortunate Pokemon that happens to be on the field, and allow a teammate to come in unscathed with three turns of Trick Room remaining. Stealth Rock is always useful to chip health off of the opposing team and make it easier for Solrock's teammates to garner KOs. The last slot is mostly filler. Stone Edge and Zen Headbutt are Solrock's strongest physical STAB attacks and the choice between them depends on your preference. Stone Edge has a higher Base Power, but it has lower accuracy and causes Solrock to be completely walled by Ground- and Steel-type Pokemon. Zen Headbutt grants Solrock more coverage but leaves him completely exposed to Steel-types and Spiritomb.</p>

[Additional Comments]
<p>When using Solrock, the main idea is to come in, set up Trick Room, and use Explosion as soon as possible to give the rest of the team time to abuse Trick Room. However, using Explosion blindly is not always the best course of action; in many cases, it will probably be better to use Stealth Rock and then switch to the appropriate teammate. If your team already has Stealth Rock support elsewhere, Earthquake can be used in its place to grant Solrock far greater coverage, allowing it to function as a sweeper.</p>

<p>Solrock makes an adequate lead, but suffers from the omnipresence of Taunt and has no way of stopping leads such as Omastar, Uxie, and Qwilfish from setting up entry hazards. However, using Solrock in the lead position can prove useful at times as Solrock is guaranteed to set up Trick Room if the opposing lead lacks Taunt. When being used as a lead, Focus Sash is the recommended item since it allows Solrock to survive any attack and set up Trick Room. With the EV spread listed, Solrock is never KOed by a combination of Ambipom's Fake Out and U-turn. Using Solrock in the lead position can also provide your team with Stealth Rock early in the game, while Explosion is useful for punching a hole in the opposing team right from the get-go.</p>

<p>Good teammates for Solrock include Pokemon who love Trick Room in play that also cover Solrock's many weaknesses well. Exeggutor and Slowbro can both set up Trick Room as well and absorb the Grass- and Water-type attacks, respectively, that are aimed at Solrock. Porygon2 makes a good partner to Solrock, absorbing the Ghost-type attacks aimed at it and switching into Spiritomb with little trouble. Porygon2 is also neutral to Dark-type attacks, unique among Trick Room users, but is crippled by Taunt. Good sweepers to pair with Solrock include Azumarill, Hariyama, and Camerupt. Azumarill has no trouble switching into the Water-types Solrock will probably encounter and functions well both in and out of Trick Room thanks to Aqua Jet. Hariyama can switch into any Dark-type Solrock may encounter and hits hard with STAB Close Combat. Solrock loves Camerupt as a partner since Solrock can switch into Ground-type attacks aimed at Camerupt for free and set up Trick Room again.</p>

[Other Options]
<p>Solrock has a plethora of other support options, including Will-O-Wisp, Reflect, Light Screen, and Gravity, but is generally too frail to use any of them. Solrock can also pass Calm Mind and Cosmic Power boosts, but has a hard time doing so due to its many weaknesses and lack of Speed. A Choice Band set is possible, but Solrock has a limited movepool to work with and is outclassed by Rhyperior and Aggron thanks to their much higher bulk and Attack. Solrock also has Pain Split, but again, Solrock is neither bulky nor fast enough to make use of it. If using Solrock in the lead slot, Hidden Power Grass can be used in place of Stealth Rock to 2HKO Rhyperior, Omastar, and Kabutops, but has little use otherwise.</p>

[Team Options]
<p>Water-types such as Azumarill and Octillery make great partners to Solrock on either set; they are able to switch into any Water-type attacks aimed at Solrock and enjoy any Speed boosts Solrock may provide. Drapion makes a good teammate to Solrock, being able to switch into the Dark-, Bug-, Grass-, and Ghost-type attacks aimed at Solrock. Solrock is easily walled by the likes of Registeel, Regirock, and Rhyperior, so Pokemon who can easily dispose of them such as Milotic, Dugtrio, and Hariyama make good teammates. Sweepers who enjoy Trick Room such as Camerupt, Clamperl, and Exeggutor make good partners for Solrock as well.</p>

[Counters]
<p>Solrock has six weaknesses to exploit, so bringing down the floating sun isn't a difficult task to accomplish. Bulky Water-types such as Milotic and Slowbro take pitiful damage from anything Solrock can dish out, bar Explosion, and easily KO Solrock with Surf. Registeel, Regirock, and Rhyperior take little damage from anything Solrock may use and enjoy Trick Room thanks to their low Speed. Spiritomb puts a good stop to either Solrock set; it is immune to Explosion and Zen Headbutt, benefits from Trick Room, and KOes Solrock with any of its moves. Spiritomb can even pick off Solrock with Shadow Sneak before it can Baton Pass out to its teammate. Venusaur can easily come in on either set and threaten Solrock with Leaf Storm or Energy Ball. Venusaur can even threaten Solrock's teammates with Sleep Powder on the Baton Pass if Solrock isn't protected by a Substitute.</p>

Bump + OP Updated

If a mod could change the title to a Solrock Revamp it would be much appreciated. Thanks :)

Bumping as well... any comments?

For the RP+BP set, just run 228 EVs in speed and Adamant. This way, it outspeeds min speed milotic and Max speed torterra (232 vs. 233; of what use this would be, I don't really know... explode on it I guess, or just dry pass.. to venusaur or something to take the wood hammer/leech seed, but it still gets rocks up), as virtually everything in the 70-56 range does not run speed, barring (possibly) poliwrath (there are quite a few NU pokemon that you outspeed, but none are common enough to merit the speed anyway).

For the sake of just noting it here, you outrun every common scarfer bar Uxie (who usually tricks its scarf anyway, and as far as I know does not run jolly/timid) after a RP (Rotom is IMO the fastest scarfer you'll see; max +speed rotom is outspeed by 3 points after RP with 228 speed adamant)

[SET]
name: Rock Polish + Baton Pass
move 1: Rock Polish
move 2: Stone Edge (why are you running Rock Slide anyway? should be mentioned in AC for substall moltres; otherwise it's a poor idea)
move 3: Baton Pass
move 4: Substitute / Earthquake / Explosion
item: Leftovers / Liechi Berry
nature: Adamant / Jolly
evs: 28 HP / 252 Atk / 228 Spe

Something like that.

If there is sandstorm support, is Cosmic Power+BP viable? Otherwise, are the screens and w-o-w viable?

Having Rock Slide over Stone Edge was unintentional, but Rock Slide does deserve a slash as missing on something like Swellow or Altaria could spell doom for Solrock, so it's going to remain a slash.

Even if Solrock has some EVs in HP, it won't let him survive hardly anything of importance that he already couldn't. So, it's kind of a paradox, having max speed doesn't help him outspeed anything further and having extra evs in HP doesn't help him survive anything further. If there is a Leftovers or a Substitute number that I'm missing then I'll be inclined to move the extra speed evs over to HP, otherwise I'm just going to leave it at 252.

I will add Cosmic Power to AC in the Baton Pass set, however passing Rock Polish boosts is more reliable than passing defense boosts all the time. I'm not saying a set of Cosmic Power + BP in sandstorm wouldn't be viable, I just have never played with it, and I don't see it working too well. I could be wrong, so if you or anyone else has success with it with logs to prove it, I'll add it to the analysis.

The screens do have a mention in the Lead set, as Solrock is handidly capable of doing so.

As for Will-o-wisp, I couldn't find any luck with it. Solrock isn't Spiritomb, where if Spiritomb misses it doesn't mean Spiritomb is going to die the next turn from whatever he's trying to burn, as for Solrock it does mean he'll die if he misses. Even at 252/252 and a +def nature, Solrock is taking 64.5%-76.2% from a CB Hitmonlee's Close Combat. So if Solrock misses, he's dead and even if he hits, he's dead.

Looks pretty good, however, you might want to list Petaya berry in Other Options (for the rock polish/BP set), so as to better pass to a Special sweeper.
Also, you should list Jolly first for the same set, as it's meant to support, not attack.

Good point, I'll add in Petaya Berry and delete Adamant as a slash and move it to AC. Adamant is useful in case you need to use him to kill Flying stuff, otherwise, yeah, Jolly is the superior option.

Again, using jolly nature and max speed does not outspeed anything significant. If you want, slash Careful and Impish, but Solrock does not need Jolly.

TR Lead: When I see a Solrock. My first impulse is TAUNT! Ambipom beats you handily with Fake Out (no Sash!), then Taunt (no TR/SR!), then U-Turn (Oops Stone Edge scratched a Registeel/Milotic). Other leads in the top ten of July 2010 that Taunt: Electrode, Qwilfish, Alakazam

Baton Passer: For partners, Drapion doesn't exactly hit like a truck. Neither does Poliwrath. Guts Toxic Orb SD Ursaring, Moltres, Hariyama and Octillery are more powerful monsters to exploit.

This is the problem with skeleton analyses, I'm not sure how much I'm supposed to explain... but here it goes.

I was plaining on expanding on what to do when faced with Ambipom. Obviously Ambipom is going to Taunt you, so during that turn the user should either just Stone Edge to highly damage Ambipom or just switch out. I already stated in the comments that Solrock loses to Ambipom.

Against Electrode, Solrock should always Stone Edge and 2HKO Electrode as it Taunts and then Rain Dances. Solrock hasn't set up Trick Room, but he still has his Focus Sash to Explode on the incoming sweeper.

Against Qwilfish, Solrock is usually in a lose situation under the same category as Omastar. Solrock can 2HKO with Stone Edge however, so Qwilfish is forced to either Taunt and get up a layer of Spikes, or get 2 layers of Spikes up without Taunting Solrock.

Against Alakazam, Solrock should always Trick Room on turn one for the chance that they don't Taunt as not all Lead Alakazam carry it. If they do Taunt, Solrock can still OHKO Alakazam with Stone Edge unless they have Focus Sash. So, most of the times that I used Solrock, Alakazam wasn't that big of problem as not all Alakazam carry both Taunt and Focus Sash that I encountered.

Baton Passer: I was just listing Pokemon who have good type synergy with Solrock, I'll add Octillery, Hariyama, and Moltres to the teammates section. I'm unconvinced about Ursaring as neither Solrock nor Ursaring can take any Fighting type attacks and switching Ursaring is hard to do to begin with.

I agree with pretty much all your changes. Sol of Choice sucks despite the badass name, leave it to OC and point out that Rhyperior and things do it way better.

Pretesting:

On the lead set, I would possibly consider replacing Stone Edge with Zen Headbutt (Solrock gets Zen Headbutt right). That lets you "beat" Hariyama and Qwilfish, while not really hurting you against anything else (all the things you would use Rock-type attacks on you're better off going TR -> Explode).

The RP Baton Pass set could use some optimization. This is the one I came up with:

Solrock @ Leftovers/Life Orb
Adamant
24 HP/252 Atk/232 Spe
-Rock Polish
-Baton Pass
-Stone Edge
-Explosion/Earthquake

I'm not seeing what you outrun specifically by going max speed Jolly. This Spe level with Adamant lets you outrun Scarf Rotom at +2, and that's the fastest scarfer you're going to see in UU. It also lets you outrun Jolly Torterra and below before boosts, which lets you explode on things later on. The HP gives you some general bulk.

The moves I have are the most viable ones imo. Explosion is the best option by far since it can get rid of troublesome walls later on. You don't really need coverage when you're going to be passing boosts anyway. Actually now that I think about it maybe a spread without any Atk would work out better. Something like 252 HP/232 Spe/24 Def Impish? That has a (fairly small) chance of surviving a Megahorn from Rhyperior, which is pretty bloody impressive. Your Explosion is a lot weaker and so is Stone Edge, but if you wanted an offensive RP user that can explode there are better options anyway (Regirock); the bulk helps in getting your pass off, which is more important. Hmm. I'll test both and get back to you.

On the lead set: I did try out Zen Headbutt a long time ago, and I completely forgot about it until you just mentioned it again, so as far as a remember, it did work out just as well, so it'll get a slash instead of Rock Slide.

Baton Passer: I'll change the EV spread to a more defensive one, as it should focus more on supporting than attacking. I was just thinking the more attack would help in defeating some of the Pokemon that give his good teammates some trouble, but after some calcs, I guess not. Most of the time I was testing the Baton Passer I wasn't attacking much anyway, so the more defensive the better I suppose. Solrock doesn't need any attack investment to put a serious dent in something like Milotic with Explosion to allow his teammates to come in and finish the job.

Again, you only need 228 speed, not 232. 228 nets 233 speed (or at least says shoddy); after RP it is 466

thus

you outspeed max+ torterra (233 vs. 232) pre boost and +1 max Rotom (466 vs. 463) post boost

And you get a free point of defence (you pick), which can help you to survive Rhyperior's Megahorn just that much more often

Yeah the 232 Spe was me subconsciously speed-creeping. I always go one point over what's necessary when I team-build, but that's not viable on analyses for obvious reasons. Stick with 228 Spe.

Allrighty, changing to 228.

Okay. I tested the Rock Polish set. Its primary pass receiving partners on my team were Special LO Venusaur and Magmortar, since this thing attracts Grass and Water types like crazy. Its primary set up options were against Earthquakes from Donphan and things, and the bulk was super useful here because I lived through a mispredicted Assurance and blew up on Donphan one time, hehe. I found it fairly useful because even if it wasn't going to be passing anything it could at the least blow up on something, so I never thought to myself "wow might as well have started 5-6".

I haven't tested the TR set yet, mostly because I don't actually have a TR team. Once I do that I'll post my impressions and approve/disapprove. But for now you can take this as a tentative approval of the RP set only.

Bump + OP updated.

Any more suggestions, stamps?

Although I'd prefer the Trick Room Lead to be changed to just "Trick Room." Solrock just doesn't make a good lead anymore because it can't stop set up and gets beat by all Taunt leads like Electrode, Alakazam, and Ambipom. Even Trick leads get the advantage because they halt the set up of either Trick Room or Stealth Rock, and common Trick leads (Uxie and Mesprit) carry U-turn to bring in a counter as you switch. It's effectiveness out of the lead position is much better.

Whoops, forgot to give my input on TR. I agree with Thund; Solrock makes a much better mid-game TR user because it can pop in, TR, and kablooey instead of getting Taunted all the time. Change the set name to "Trick Room".

OK, I liked him as a lead minus the Taunt problem, but changed to Trick Room it shall be.

Sorry, can this get moved? I only need 2 stamps correct?

I'm in the process of writing the Trick Room set right now.

OK, I think this is ready for any GP checks. I had trouble deciding between using "it" or "him" as Solrock is technically non-gender. I ended up going with he. And, for whatever reason I was having writer's block while writing this, so it isn't my best work.

Bump. GP check please!

removals in red
additions in blue

note: Solrock is genderless, so all references to 'he' need to be changed to 'it' even if you are accounting for gender.

GP CHECK 1/2

will stamp when changes are implemented. good analysis

I have been requested to GP check this. I shall do mine after uragg's check is implemented.