Duskull (Analysis)

Towelie

GP Checks: [2/2]


[Overview]

<p>With excellent physical defense, Ghost-typing, as well as access to Will-O-Wisp, Duskull is one of the premier walls in the Little Cup environment. Duskull still has a few shortcomings though, namely his small HP stat and extremely shallow movepool. Still, Duskull can be employed to provide the coverage and support many offensive teams in Little Cup lack.</p>

[SET]
name: Support
move 1: Will-O-Wisp
move 2: Shadow Sneak
move 3: Return / Ice Beam
move 4: Pain Split
item: Oran Berry
ability: Levitate
nature: Relaxed
evs: 196 HP / 116 Atk / 36 Def / 116 SpD

[Set Comments]

<p>Duskull’s main job is to check a plethora of physical sweepers with ease in the Little Cup environment. With access to Will-O-Wisp, as well as a semi-reliable recovery move, Duskull can be extremely hard to take down, and can proceed to wear down the opposing team rather quickly. With Will-O-Wisp, Duskull can shut down physical attackers such as Gligar, Munchlax, Aron, and Krabby. Shadow Sneak helps revenge kill things such as Gastly, and comes with the added bonus of STAB and decent neutral coverage. Return may look odd on such a weak Pokemon, but it prevents things like Carvanha and Houndour from setting up Substitutes on Duskull. Ice Beam can be used over Return if you want the quick KO on Gligar, but Return and damage inflicted by a burn burn damage can also whittle Gligar down, thus making Ice Beam the inferior choice. Pain Split is necessary on this set to keep Duskull healthy and ready to wall physical attackers when needed.</p>

[Additional Comments]

<p>The EVs on this set prioritize Defense while still leaving Duskull with a potent Attack stat. When using Ice Beam, an extra 36 EVs can be placed into Duskull’s Special Attack to will increase it by one point.</p>

<p>Duskull is best paired with Pokemon that can cover his weaknesses. For example, Munchlax makes an excellent partner because it can switch into special attacking threats like Houndour with ease. Conversely, Duskull can switch into Physical attacking threats that Munchlax dislikes. The typing that is provided by Duskull and Munchlax is also beneficial; Munchlax possesses an immunity to Ghost-type moves while Duskull is immune to Fighting attacks.</p>

[SET]
name: Lead
move 1: Will-O-Wisp
move 2: Shadow Sneak
move 3: Shadow Ball
move 4: Hidden Power Fire
item: Oran Berry
ability: Levitate
nature: Quiet
ivs: 30 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
evs: 196 HP / 40 Atk / 36 Def / 200 SpA / 36 SpD

[Set Comments]

<p>However improbable it may seem, Duskull can excel in the lead position due to access to Will-O-Wisp and priority moves. Duskull excels against many common leads in Little Cup, including Snover, Aipom, Diglett, Chimchar, and Machop. With the usage of Hidden Power Fire, Snover can be removed early from the match, which can be extremely beneficial to many teams. With a combination of Will-O-Wisp and Duskull's coverage moves, he has an easy time taking care of the aforementioned leads. Duskull also has midgame utility, as he is able to come in and burn the threats to your team.</p>

[Additional Comments]

<p>While Duskull does beat many common leads, it does have its shortcomings. Houndour and Ponyta, for example, can switch in on two of Duskull’s Fire-type moves and either KO Duskull, or hit the switch-in extremely hard with a boosted STAB move. Kabuto also has a favorable matchup against Duskull, setting up Stealth Rock, as well as hitting Duskull with any move followed by Aqua Jet.</p>

[Team Options]

<p>As stated earlier, Duskull and Munchlax form an amazing Defensive combo, with Duskull walling Physical threats, and Munchlax walling Special threats. Anything that can check Carvanha and Houndour is also necessary; Croagunk, for example, can revenge both of them with a Super Effective Vacuum Wave. Special Attackers like Gastly also enjoy the fact that Duskull can cripple Munchlax and Gligar, allowing Gastly an easier sweep.</p>

[Optional Changes]

<p>On the Support set, Trick Room with 0 IVs in Speed can be used to great success. Confuse Ray can annoy opponents, but then users of Substitute can easily set up on Duskull. Rest can also effectively be used instead of Pain Split for a more reliable source of recovery, however; the two free turns could allow the opponent to set up. Apart from that, Duskull has an extremely shallow movepool. A Hidden Power of choice can be used to lure specific Pokemon your team has trouble with, but Duskull has weak attacking stats, so it won’t be hitting hard.</p>

[Counters]

<p>Duskull's biggest counters are easily Fire-types, such as Growlithe, Houndour, Magby, and Ponyta. They are all immune to burn damage and can easily dispose of Duskull with boosted STAB moves. Wynaut can also remove Duskull from the match by either Encoring a support move, or using Counter as Duskull uses Shadow Sneak. Substitute users like Carvanha can also scare Duskull out and set up a free Substitute.</p>
 
Note that Choice Band Gligar makes a good teammate, as it will help counter Ponyta and Houndour. (As well as getting pretty good Syenergy) and you said Drifblim outclassed it for CM, I'm sure you meant Drifloon.
 
first off, choice band on gligar is dumb because life orb and cb are roughly the same boost in lc and being locked in eq isn't fun. secondly, it doesnt counter houndour or ponyta it all. gligar cant switch into fire blast from either of these so hes not a counter, just a check. but thank you for the input (though i don't see how they have good synergy...)

Edit: and of course i meant drifloon
 
stamp3.png


I've used Duskull, seen it in action both on my team and against my team. These sets are tried and true.
 
Ice Beam should be AC at best since you take jack from everything but Night Slash and WoW neuters Gligar anyways, which is the only thing Ice Beam is hitting. Body Slam imo is a great option on the defensive duskull instead set since if you paralyze something like a special attacker or a fire type, you can pain split off damage before they hit you again and stall them out 1-on-1.

The lead set looks good on paper, but you have to bear in mind you can't prevent rocks from being set up (and sand in hippopotas' case), and most of the offensive leads you claim to beat will either outright kill you in reality (meowth, non-focus sash snover if it ice shards or leech seeds you at any point), or are incredibly rare to the point of being moot (abra, voltorb, lead gligar). It looks like a good set but it wouldn't actually work which leads me to belive you haven't actually gotten around to testing the set.

I'd be interested in seeing or even testing a Calm Mind/Shadow Ball/Ice Beam/Pain Split set for you though, as Ice Beam has more utility without WoW and it gives you an easy set up for CM if you come in on the numerous pokemon using fighting, normal, and ground moves. If you opt this route, you won't really need to put Ice Beam into AC, but you might want to explain why Ice Beam and WoW don't acually give good synergy on the same set.
 
Yes I have been testing Lead Duskull, and it's worked fantastically tbh. Ya, you may think it only works in theory, but it really is good. If you need logs, I can get them. Snover never beats this... EVER. (Unless Blizzard Freeze/Crit.) Meowth get's WoWed and made useless the rest of the match. Bite never 3hkos through oran iirc after a non burn bite, then two burns. CM seems meh but I will test it to see how it works out. onto bulky skull, you're point does make sense about body slam, i will get to testing
 
Slash Return/Body Slam vs. Ice Beam? You don't hit anything really notable apart from Gligar, which is scared of WoW and can't do anything to you. I would also consider putting the significant investment into Defense rather than Special Defense in order to take Gligar and co on better (especially the nasty LO + 4 attacks Gligar).

The lead set looks surprisingly good (though I'd like to see how long it would take you to HP Fire Bronzor to death).

Munchlax should definitely be the big mention in Team Options, as MunchSkull (OMG AWESOME NAME >>> SKARMBLISS) is a fantastic core for any team type and checks a lot of stuff. Special attackers that like burned Munchlaxes (especially Snover/Houndour/Gastly/Drifloon, but also Chinchou, Staryu, Mantyke, Abra, <special attacker>...)

Calm Mind seems like a pretty bad use for Duskull seeing that it can't Will-o-Wisp stuff so it loses a lot of utility.
 
Thank's for the input Ice-eyes. I'm gonna be testing cm but it seems kinda meh. I'll mention munchskull (lol). iirc hp fire 3hkos bronzor through oran. im actually putting body slam as the main slash with a mention of ice beam in oo.
 
I didn't like the lead duskull, can you post logs?

And the support set is missing Ice Beam and Return over Body Slam. Paralysis clashes with WoW and currently all you do to Gligar is burn it and watch it Swords Dance. It should look like this:

[SET]
name: Support
move 1: Will-O-Wisp
move 2: Shadow Sneak
move 3: Ice Beam / Return
move 4: Pain Split
item: Oran Berry
ability: Levitate
nature: Relaxed
evs: 196 HP / 116 Atk / 36 Def / 36 SpA / 116 SpD

Once the logs are posted and the set is fixed, I'll approve it.
 
Yeah, I don't like Body Slam - it would really suck to get Pursuited to death by a paralysed Munchlax.

I think it's more important to be able to hurt Munchlax than Gligar, especially as SD Gligar isn't all that threatening (or common). You also end up getting walled by a lot of stuff you shouldn't be because Ice/Ghost doesn't have great coverage.
 
Heysup, I really think Ice Beam is AC material, or at least the second slash. It really only hits gligar and WoW + return or shadow sneak can easily wear it down. And once i start laddering again, I will post some logs of Duskull lead. Thank you guys for the input.

Edit: And should I make an extra trick room set? I've just been using tr/wow/ss/body slam. idk if bulky should slash trick room w/ pain split or if it should be ac or if it should be its own set.
 
Against Munchlax the only thing you can really do is WoW and spam Pain Split. I mean you could use Confuse Ray I guess.

And SD Gligar is fairly common and very threatening, especially the infamous Wynaut + SD Gligar strategy. Use other Pokemon to primarily check Munchlax imo.

Return does a whopping 21.7% - 30.4% to Gligar, which means that even with burn damage Gligar can set up to +6 (which is still fairly impossible to deal with even after burn) and sweep your team. Ice Beam stops this from happening. Also, do you really want your Gligar check to have a 75% success rate by relying on WoW hitting?
 
SD Gligar isn't anywhere near as common as it used to be :(

Anyways, Body Slam on a TR set is strange. I would just go AC with it though.
 
Ok so basically Gligar takes 22 % min from Return. 12 % from burn.
Turn 1: 34 % gone.
Turn 2: 68 % gone.
Turn 3: Dead Gligar.

So ya, it can set up to +6 but get killed >.<. If it happens to run oran, I doubt a +6 burned EQ would KO. And like EM said, SD Gligar isn't as common anymore.
 
Elevator Music said:
SD Gligar isn't anywhere near as common as it used to be :(

Anyways, Body Slam on a TR set is strange. I would just go AC with it though.
Click to expand...

A tried and true set (SD Gligar) and strategy (Wynaut) is still worth considering when you're writing an analysis regardless of whether people happen to be using it or not (especially with a sporadic metagame like LC) at one specific moment. Duskull's main focus is to stop all forms of Gligar, and relying on 75% to "weaken" Gligar is not a very good plan when you can just OHKO it.

Towelie said:
Ok so basically Gligar takes 22 % min from Return. 12 % from burn.
Turn 1: 34 % gone.
Turn 2: 68 % gone.
Turn 3: Dead Gligar.

So ya, it can set up to +6 but get killed >.<. If it happens to run oran, I doubt a +6 burned EQ would KO. And like EM said, SD Gligar isn't as common anymore.
Click to expand...

A +6 burned Night Slash (Always) KOes and a +6 burned Stone Edge usually KOes with SR with an Oran Berry. As I mentioned previously, SD Gligar is not your only problem, other Gligar will beat you quite often without Ice Beam.
 
Body Slam and ShadowSneak are illegel. If you are using ShadowSneak on any set, don't include Body Slam. Also, I agree with Heysup, keep Ice Beam slashed on Support Duskull. It's more accurate than Will-O-Wisp and kills it in one shot. I'd much rather have Gligar KOed than having it just burned and having time to set up Stealth Rock, Taunt, Roost, etc. Please put it back.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top