Golduck (Calm Mind)

Status: Done!



http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/golduck

[SET]
name: Offensive Calm Mind
move 1: Calm Mind
move 2: Surf / Hydro Pump
move 3: Ice Beam
move 4: Hidden Power Grass
item: Life Orb
ability: Cloud Nine
nature: Timid
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>While many of Golduck's sets are solely focused on its capacity to check weather teams courtesy of its ability, Cloud Nine, Golduck's great movepool, above average Special Attack, and access to Calm Mind make it a formidable sweeper as well. Golduck's unique ability to overpower some of the most common UU Pokemon, while at the same time checking many common weather sweepers, makes it a great choice for offensively inclined teams.</p>

<p>Calm Mind is what sets Golduck apart from other offensive Water-type sweepers such as Milotic. After one use, it boosts Golduck's Special Attack stat to 433. Keep in mind that Calm Mind does not have to be used immediately. In fact, concealing Calm Mind until the opportune moment is a much wiser option. Surf is the first choice for a STAB move due to its reliability and decent power. However, the power increase provided by Hydro Pump is welcome, especially when Golduck is operating without a Calm Mind boost. Ice Beam and Hidden Power Grass allow Golduck to hit all of UU, excluding Shedinja, for at least neutral damage, while hitting Grass-, Flying-, and Water-types who can potentially impede Golduck's sweep super effectively. Hidden Power Grass helps Golduck better check rain teams because it hits rain sweepers Kabutops and Omastar for 4x damage.</p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

<p>Golduck, like many other sweepers, appreciates entry hazard support to make its job easier. Prime candidates to set up entry hazards are Omastar and Donphan. While Omastar shares Electric- and Grass-type weaknesses with Golduck, it can set up both Stealth Rock and Spikes. Donphan is also weak to Grass-type attacks and can only set up Stealth Rock, but boasts an Electric-type immunity for Golduck to take advantage of and can also utilize Rapid Spin to get rid of entry hazards.</p>

<p>Pokemon such as Venusaur and Milotic are common switch-ins to Golduck, but Golduck can OHKO offensive Venusaur with Ice Beam after a Calm Mind boost and will come out on top against Milotic lacking Haze. Pokemon such as Hitmonlee and Rhyperior appreciate these sturdier walls being weakened or outright KOed, and therefore make great options to keep offensive momentum. These Pokemon can also scare off two of Golduck's best counters, Chansey and Registeel, with their powerful physical attacks. Hitmonlee gets a special mention for its ability to switch in safely on Thunder Wave aimed at Golduck, thanks to Limber.</p>

<p>Golduck's weaknesses to Grass- and Electric-type attacks are often exploited after it has forced a switch. Therefore, Grass-types such as Leafeon and Venusaur are great partners to help keep offensive momentum. Grass-types can deal with Water-types who Golduck cannot muscle through, such as Haze Milotic. These Pokemon can also draw Fire- and Ice-type attacks for Golduck to switch into.</p>

<p>Golduck can use Cross Chop instead of Calm Mind to become a formidable mixed attacker with the ability to 2HKO standard Chansey after Stealth Rock damage with a Life Orb boost and a Timid nature. Golduck can also use Psychic to gain coverage against Poison-types such as Qwilfish and Toxicroak, but the possibility of boosting Special Attack through Calm Mind is often missed. If you choose not to use Calm Mind, it is advised that you use Hydro Pump to counteract the drop in power.</p>

you know, cross chop may be nice to try out since even with a modest/timid nature it will dent chansey. also, why not just make it specs? Revamp the one on site or something

That makes this essentially the Mixed Attacker with a different spread, and compromising Golduck's decent defenses makes him more difficult to switch in because defensively he isnt Milotic or Azumarril.

Specs isnt as good because Golduck cannot lure in and KO Venusaur and Quagsire, among other things. Life Orb lets Golduck take advantage of its movepool better than Specs.

it can 2ko chansey with a timid nature and a life orb, and SR up. Chansey wont stay in, making it different and not outclassed by milotic, who can run the exact same thing better

...no calm mind? The current CM set is horrible, and Calm Mind is way too good to pass up. Please turn this into a CM set. The 4th slot currently doesn't have anything useful anyway...

Apart from the suprise value, slightly more speed and a little better move coverage, what advantages does this have over LO Milotic, Milotic has recovery, more special attack and more overall bulk with 95/75/100 compared to 80/78/80 of Golduck?

@ FlareBlitz - You know, CM is a cool idea that I hadn't thought of, that might go in the the second slash for the last slot because Psychic is also good. Psychic nails Toxicroak (common Water switch in), Muk (special sponge), Weezing (WeezLotic breaker anyone?), and Qwilfish (Rain sweeper). Focus Blast and Hypnosis aren't that reliable so a 3 attack CM sweeper could be a sweet set...I'm a little worried about only 85 Speed though.

@ Bartman101 - This is very similar to Milotic, but along with your Life Orb Milotic you get something that almost completely protects you from any trouble you might have against Weather teams, which can free up slots in team building that might have been wasted on a priority attacker simply to deal with Rain / Sun.

Ah, i see, I'll give it a try then, along with Thund's sub+3 attacks Hitmonlee as it's main partner

I'd sooner run LO Milotic than LO Golduck. It only has 4 less base in speed (which doesn't really matter much) and infinitely more bulk and power. If you want this set to shine I'd pretty much make Calm Mind mandatory and toss out Psychic. (It's not that useful)

Well, after a fair bit of testing I found out that: Golduck is quite heavily outclassed by LO Milotic, generally doesn't have the time to Calm Mind, it's only niche IMO is that it counters weather teams....

Yes the main point of Golduck is to counter weather teams. I understand that and that is why this set is here, to play to Golduck's strengths. The Life Orb set gives it a better chance to do that and gives it more utility against non weather teams.

Finding time to Calm Mind is hard which is why it remains the second option behind Psychic.

Psychic does absolutely nothing outside of hitting Toxicroack and Qwilfish (Muk is non-existant). While hitting the latter comes in handy when facing rain teams, Hypnosis, Cross Chop or Calm Mind will give him a much more efficient moveset when facing the average teams. IMO rain is not common enough to warrant the addition of pokémons solely to beat it (Gardevoir tends to do that better as well); and that's what this Golduck is doing, being outclassed in every other situation by Milotic.

Rain is actually pretty common once you get high enough on the Shoddy ladder. Just saying. Anyway, replace Psychic with Calm Mind or Cross Chop, as Psychic doesn't really help much.

What really happened is that rain has become a fad yet again, just like it happened on the Cresselia metagame. The difference is that now the metagame is even more unfavorable to rain, something people seem not to notice; being no longer outstanding.

Psychic also hits Poliwrath for SE while being neutral to pretty much anything except Slowbro/King (Cacturne and Sharpedo are very rare, and no one uses Shiftry/Crawdaunt). It still hits Venusaur for SE damage too.


But i agree that Golduck is mostly outclassed by Milotic if it lacks Calm Mind or Encore (you NEED to mention it).

Here's my thoughts:

CM + Encore is a good option; leaves you with only 2 attacks though, so Psychic here is the best choice for the coverage.
CM + 3 attacks dosn't need Psychic; CM/Surf or Hydro Pump/Ice Beam/HP Grass is the way to go.

Ok, with the advice of community members I altered the set to be a CM + 3 Attack set to help it out against non weather teams. Cross Chop will be mentioned as well for the 2hko on chansey. These changes should set it apart from Milotic, a critique that was holding this back.

Of course, more suggestions are welcome.

This set is better in OU actually. And Hydro Pump's damage output makes it better than Surf.

I was thinking about making Hydro Pump the standard option if you aren't running Calm Mind, and the secondary option if you are (this assumes that Encore / Cross Chop would replace CM of course). Thoughts?

If you want an all round weather counter, something like this may be worth mentioning:

Golduck @ Expert Belt
Ability: Cloud Nine
EVs: 4 HP/252 SpA/252 Spe
Nature: Timid
-Surf
-Hidden Power Grass
-Signal Beam
-Psychic

SJCrew (IIRC) was the one started using this, I think. Anyway, this thing can pretty nab you any weather sweeper. Surf is STAB, and helps greatly against Sunny Day teams, HP Grass kills Waters like Kabutops, Gorebyss, Omastar, etc. Signal Beam hits Grass types in the Sun and Ludicolo in the rain while Psychic gets Qwilfish for you.

That is basically the set I had posted at first, but with a Life Orb and Ice Beam over Signal Beam. I wanted to make Golduck as good as possible outside of a battle vs weather...which is how I and the commentors so far arrived at the current set. This set still works really well against weather teams.

I am definitely liking this set. This one appears better than the CM set on site.
It's not outclassed by LO Milotic because it has no way of boosting it's special attack. This set isn't really outclassed by anything in the UU tier. It has a niche of being a Water type CMer, who has decent speed unlike Slowking and Slowbro. Overall good set!

STEELDRAGON, Relicanth can run a set that gets perfect coverage with only it's STAB moves, letting it go mixed with Head Smash to kill Chansey or Rock Polish to go in the way of double boosting, pushing that speed up to acceptable levels. ^_^

Out of curiosity, is there anything Hydro Pump can kill that Surf can't?

Cool set. May throw in over Milotic next time.

Hey, I was gonna post this set. Eventually.

@ Shrang: That's my old Golduck set. Now I use LO with Hydro Pump/Psychic/HP Grass/filler.

Keep in mind that CM or not, Golduck is still going to do its job as both a weather counter and a special sweeper. I suppose CM is nice for hitting bulky Water types harder with HP Grass, especially Milotic, but if it really comes down to it, I'd rather maximize on coverage. Trust me, you're going to spend a lot more time outright attacking than setting up.

Apart from the suprise value, slightly more speed and a little better move coverage, what advantages does this have over LO Milotic

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lol. Rain Dance, Sunny Day, Hail, Sandstorm...you name it, Golduck beats it. Isn't that why we're using it in the first place? If you don't need a safeguard for Rain, just use something else.

Psychic does absolutely nothing outside of hitting Toxicroack and Qwilfish

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...and Venusaur, and Toxicroak...otherwise you can just use Psychic for other Fighting types without worrying about Hydro Pump missing. lol. But seriously, that's good enough. You get to hit another Rain sweeper, which is the main reason you're using Golduck to begin with, and a couple of other key Pokemon that you don't want switching in for free. In this game, we call that "coverage".

Put Psychic in the fourth moveslot and slash CM after it. It's way too important to have that coverage against Qwilfish while still not losing to Venusaur or Toxicroak. CM is a novelty, not a requirement.

EDIT: Last part was unnecessary, just want this to be moved to mainsite ASAP because...what can I say, it's good.

Pretty much the epitome of unecessary (even more because Ice Beam already hits Venusaur and it has HP Grass for Poliwrath, not to mention Surf already deals some decent amount of damage to Qwilfish due to its extremely shitty defenses just like Ice Beam does to Croak), but I do agree the OP set deserves an write-up.

Sorry Bluewind, but your theories are both terrible and unfounded. Without Psychic, you do not OHKO Qwilfish, and you don't OHKO Toxicroak. Even with their bad Sp. Def, they can still revenge you (or come in off of Uxie's Uturn). Those are two Pokemon you don't ever want to give a free turn to (especially not Croak because he can just sub punch your ass to oblivion). Poliwrath doesn't get 2HKOed from HP Grass either. All that and you're not missing out on your ability to kill Venusaur. We're looking at a legit coverage move here.

Really though, it doesn't even matter what the fourth moveslot is. I've switched from Encore, to Ice Beam, and even Signal Beam. But Psychic should be a mainstay for hitting the targets you're actually supposed to hit, without losing to the #2 Pokemon in the tier.