Shit, I already had a fully trained Absol, I'll have to make another one just because we discovered it learns play rough...
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Pokémon Absol
- Thread starter Adamant Zoroark
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Justified lines up perfectly with aegislash.
You can switch to absol to soak a dark pulse intended for the sword, and you can switch to aegislash for any fighting moves directed at absol.
You can switch to absol to soak a dark pulse intended for the sword, and you can switch to aegislash for any fighting moves directed at absol.
True. I'm trying to think if there's any other meaningful coverage you get from Superpower you don't get from Play Rough. Mostly I think it just leaves you without a reliable way to take out certain steel types (Heatran is the only one I can think of, though. Everything is else is countered by Fire Blast). And Tyrannitar. Absol's a beautiful Tyrannitar counter with Superpower. Though Play Rough I think gets the KO as well.
And the attack drop sucks, but on a SD set you have the ability to make up for it. Actually, with Play Rough I think Absol could run a good Choice set.
Something like:
Superpower/Play Rough
Night Slash/Pursuit/Sucker Punch
Fire Blast
Night Slash/Pursuit/Sucker Punch
I don't like Sucker Punch on a choice set just because it becomes too predictable. If it's a scarf set it still counters Gengar pretty well regardless of the loss of priority. Absol makes a good pursuit user, but I feel like it's not threatening enough bulk-wise to do that job properly. And it doesn't really outspeed a lot of other things it'd want to pursuit. (Alakazam, Starmie, MegaGengar)
Honestly, with the Special Attack boost, Fire Blast gives Absol so much coverage on stuff it wants to switch-in on. (Foretress, Skarmory, Ferrothorn.) You bounce back their hazards and then threaten them out with fire blast. Something Espeon could never do very well.
Between Sucker Punch, Pursuit, and Magic Bounce, Absol can make use of Taunt or Substitute well, and may just be the best possible user of Snatch ever.
Snatch actually sounds like a pretty viable option on Megabsol.
Also, I love how everyone seems to be forgetting that Dark is neutral on Steel now. (OP with all your Fire Blast nonsense, I'm looking at you.)
Learning that Absol gets Rough Play is pretty nice; doesn't Dark/Fairy have pretty much neutral coverage on everything? Only thing it'd miss that comes to mind are Megawile and Klefki, so I guess Fire Blast could be a niche move to hit them, but I think I'd rather just use Magnezone or something to trap and remove them.
Aside from Swords Dance + Baton Pass + Sucker Punch/Night Slash + Rough Play, I'm liking the sound of things like the Sub set with Sub/Taunt + Sucker Punch + Pursuit + Rough Play.
On a side note, it looks like Linoone is probably the best parent for breeding Rough Play, since it's a level 1 heart scale move. Linoone as a user of Rough Play sounds pretty good too, but I digress.
Also, I love how everyone seems to be forgetting that Dark is neutral on Steel now. (OP with all your Fire Blast nonsense, I'm looking at you.)
Learning that Absol gets Rough Play is pretty nice; doesn't Dark/Fairy have pretty much neutral coverage on everything? Only thing it'd miss that comes to mind are Megawile and Klefki, so I guess Fire Blast could be a niche move to hit them, but I think I'd rather just use Magnezone or something to trap and remove them.
Aside from Swords Dance + Baton Pass + Sucker Punch/Night Slash + Rough Play, I'm liking the sound of things like the Sub set with Sub/Taunt + Sucker Punch + Pursuit + Rough Play.
On a side note, it looks like Linoone is probably the best parent for breeding Rough Play, since it's a level 1 heart scale move. Linoone as a user of Rough Play sounds pretty good too, but I digress.
Fire Blast also hits Skarmory, Ferrothorn, and Forretress much harder than Sucker Punch (except Ferrothorn who still takes more damage from it), although they won't be able to do too much back. I think if you're not worried about Klefki and Mawile, then your best bet for a coverage move would actually be Ice Beam as Gliscor and Landorus-T are both OHKO'd by it. The former can try to get around Sucker Punch with Substitute while the latter isn't even 2HKO'd by +1 Sucker Punch and has a 62.5% chance to OHKO back with Earthquake if Absol switched into SR.
Thunderbolt could also potentially be useful for Gyarados, though offensive variants are still OHKO'd by a +1 Sucker Punch after SR damage. This is all assuming Naughty Absol, BTW.
Thunderbolt could also potentially be useful for Gyarados, though offensive variants are still OHKO'd by a +1 Sucker Punch after SR damage. This is all assuming Naughty Absol, BTW.
No one forgot, it's more that Fire/Fighting hits steel types hard. Fire Blast guarantees a KO on Ferrothorn, Skarmory and Foretress, while I dunno if Sucker Punch/Night Slash does with their high defenses. But yeah, an anti-steel teammate might work better. I like the idea of outright taking out their entry-hazard user, though.
Yeah I think so. Fighting, Dark and Fairy are now pretty much the only thing that resists Dark. Dark has no immunities and Fairy is SE against Fighting and Dark, and it's not weak to Fairy. Now if they ever changed it so justified came with a dark-type immunity... then that'd change.
Sounds pretty good actually. Sub allows you to pursuit faster threats safely.
Don't forget about Intimidates' buff, though.
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...hmm. I guess 115 SpA is enough to warrant running special moves. Still, I think it's worth pointing out that it seems a shame to let that monstrous Attack go to waste by dividing EVs between both offenses, since it definitely wants to keep as much Speed as it can get (I think). Attack-specialized Absol is going to be hitting pretty hard even on those neutral types. But, I'll change my stance; mixed Megabsol sounds decent enough after all I suppose.
That was a lie. Serebii forgot that the intimidated Pokémon was a Simple Bidoof.
Oh, okay. I thought that buff was pretty unnecessary.
115 Special Attack is solid. There's lots of special attacking pokemon that have that as their best stat, or worse. However, I think it's kinda like mixed Hydreigon (except in reverse). You don't really need EVs to get the KOs you want on Absol. (Fire Blast KOs Skarmory, etc. without any EV investment I'm pretty sure). Then Dark/Fairy hits everything neutrally.
Though I'm more sold on using a utility sub set now, than on using a Swords Dancing set.
Special moves are really viable with 115 Spatk but yeah wasting so much potential with attack would be a shame. I can definately see a mixed set being pretty viable though.
Play Rough probably works better on a Swords Dance set than Superpower does because of SP's stat drops. Superpower probably is better on a mixed attacker set or something that will be switching quite a bit(not uncommon because magic bounce).
lmao bidoof strikes back.
I think it's been lost in the confusion, but you don't necessarily need Fire Blast to hit Steels any more, as Dark is no longer resisted by them.
Sure, Fire Blast will hit Ferro / Forry / Skarm harder, but they're going to want to flee the moment MegaAbsol hits the field (and hope that they weren't using any bounce-able moves). And in those cases, you'd be just as well off using a different move to hit a predicted switch-in. Fire Blast is there to punish Scizors switching in and other stuff critically weak to Fire, but with as many moves as Absol has available to it, you don't need to limit yourself by forcing it on every moveset.
Sure, Fire Blast will hit Ferro / Forry / Skarm harder, but they're going to want to flee the moment MegaAbsol hits the field (and hope that they weren't using any bounce-able moves). And in those cases, you'd be just as well off using a different move to hit a predicted switch-in. Fire Blast is there to punish Scizors switching in and other stuff critically weak to Fire, but with as many moves as Absol has available to it, you don't need to limit yourself by forcing it on every moveset.
I guess my issue with Fire Blast and such is running it on the Swords Dance set. That seems so impractical to me when you want at least two Dark moveslots, one for Sucker Punch and one for a more reliable attack like Night Slash, or at least something like Taunt or Sub to goad attacks that will make Sucker Punch effective. Then all that's boosted is your Dark moves, and they're gonna be hitting so hard anyway that Fire Blast hardly matters even with its SE its. SD+Sucker Punch+Rough Play+Night Slash/Taunt/Sub seems like the way to go there.
Mixing seems like it'd be more effective on an all-out attacking set like Sucker Punch+Pursuit+Fire Blast+Ice Beam/Rough Play/Sub/Taunt. But yeah, there's really no point to going mixed with the SD set IMO.
Mixing seems like it'd be more effective on an all-out attacking set like Sucker Punch+Pursuit+Fire Blast+Ice Beam/Rough Play/Sub/Taunt. But yeah, there's really no point to going mixed with the SD set IMO.
You're not always going to be at +2, and in that case you'll want Fire Blast to hit Skarmory rather than trying to go for Sucker Punch against it (Brave Bird is a clean 2HKO, while if you're not at +2 and don't have Fire Blast, you can't 2HKO.) If you don't have Fire Blast and are not at +2 (again, won't always be at +2) then Forretress will 2HKO you with Gyro Ball.
Honestly, I'm not a big fan of Night Slash. When I used SD/Sucker Punch/Superpower/Night Slash in DPP UU, there were few scenarios where I went for Night Slash and it seems that in XY OU and with Magic Bounce, of all things, there'd be even fewer (ignoring the fact that the metagame is more offensive than it used to be.) Absol seems like a wholly ineffective user of Taunt since 1) It's so frail, and 2) Most people won't be using status against it because of Magic Bounce, while I really dislike SubSD sets. For me, whenever I used things like SubSD, I always found just going SD + 3 attacks to be better (the only and I mean only exception to the rule was SubCM Jirachi.) Just the simple fact that you won't always be at +2 (let alone get a setup opportunity) makes Fire Blast worthwhile to me. Better than using something I probably won't use much if at all (Night Slash) or something that just doesn't work well (Taunt / Sub.) But I guess that's just me.
You know, there were a couple of interesting teams like this one last generation that fully abused Baton Pass to swap freely between six Pokemon with good prediction while constantly building up boosts. With another Baton Pass / Magic Guard Pokemon in Absol and better Baton Pass / Speed Boost Pokemon in Scolipede and Blaziken (if it remains OU, which I doubt), I can see this becoming an interesting idea for a team...
Man, Baton Pass with Mega Absol (whether passing or receiving) is too good.
Man, Baton Pass with Mega Absol (whether passing or receiving) is too good.
All my calcs were done with just 4 SpAtk EVs, so it's not like you have to drop your Atk to do damage with Special moves, unless you want to guarentee a OHKO on Skarmory and Specially Defensive Ferrothorn.
I'm not sure you necessarily need two Dark moves. One of the main problems with Sucker Punch is the fact that bulky Ghosts can use Will-O-Wisp while you fail to damage them with any non-Dark attack. Absol doesn't have that problem due to the fact that Magic Bounce reflects Will-O-Wisp as well as other status moves like Whirlwind. Substitute still causes problems, but Ice Beam lets Absol OHKO Gliscor. Gengar can still use Substitute, but +2 Play Rough is still a clean 2HKO on Gengar and even Ice Beam can break its Sub. Also, Absol is going to need to Sucker Punch Mega Gengar no matter what because it can just outspeed and OHKO with Focus Blast. Against regular Gengar, Night Slash does stop prediction wars due to Absol outspeeding it and not being able to OHKO with any non-Dark move, though.
Swords Dance boost cancels out NVE, and Absol's power is high while Gengar's defenses are low. Doesn't seem strange.
I didn't think it was strange I just wanted to make sure. It's easy to forget that Gengar resists fairy as it is such a prolific ghost type.
+2 252 Atk Mega Absol Play Rough vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Gengar: 131-154 (50 - 58.77%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
It actually just barely gets the 2HKO, as minimum damage is exactly half of Mega Gengar's health. I used the smogon calculator and used a 90 BP physical Grass move and changed Absol and Gengar's base stats to be their Mega's.
It actually just barely gets the 2HKO, as minimum damage is exactly half of Mega Gengar's health. I used the smogon calculator and used a 90 BP physical Grass move and changed Absol and Gengar's base stats to be their Mega's.
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