Bronzong

[JeffreyLebowski]

67/89/116/79/116/33
Levitate/ Heatproof
Dreamworld: Heavy Metal

Level Up move pool

Start Sunny Day
Start Rain Dance
Start Tackle
Start Confusion
Start Hypnosis
Start Imprison
7 Hypnosis
12 Imprison
14 Confuse Ray
19 Extrasensory
26 Iron Defense
30 Safeguard
33 Block Normal
38 Gyro Ball
43 Future Sight
50 Faint Attack
61 Payback
67 Heal Block
72 Heavy Bomber

Generation 5 TM movepool

TM03 Psycho Shock
TM04 Calm Mind
TM06 Toxic
TM10 Hidden Power
TM11 Sunny Day
TM15 Hyper Beam
TM16 Light Screen
TM17 Protect
TM18 Rain Dance
TM19 Telekinesis
TM20 Safeguard
TM21 Frustration
TM22 SolarBeam
TM26 Earthquake
TM27 Return
TM29 Psychic
TM30 Shadow Ball
TM32 Double Team
TM33 Reflect
TM37 Sandstorm
TM39 Rock Tomb
TM42 Facade
TM44 Rest
TM48 Canon
TM57 Charge Beam
TM64 Explosion
TM66 Payback
TM68 Giga Impact
TM69 Rock Polish
TM70 Flash Normal
TM74 Gyro Ball
TM77 Psych Up
TM78 Smooth Over
TM80 Rock Slide
TM85 Dream Eater
TM86 Grass Knot
TM87 Swagger
TM90 Substitute
TM91 Flash Cannon
TM92 Trick Room
TM94 Rock Smash
HM04 Strength

Gen 4 TM exclusives

TM 48 Skill Swap
TM 68 Giga Impact

Gen 4 Tutor moves

AncientPower
Block
Gravity
Iron Head
Rollout
Snore
Trick
Zen Headbutt

​

As you can see Bronzong got NOTHING of note this gen. Heavy Metal? Heavy Bomber? Wut?

Bronzong was on my favorite pokemon to use in gen 4. He made an excellent lead and pivot for offensive teams, and he had an extensive support move pool for gimmick teams, such as gravity and trick room. I think by that give typing, ability, and stats, he was arguably the bulkiest pokemon allowed in 4th gen OU. He was one of the few pokemon who could switch into mence and chomp. But it wasnt all roses and sunshine. He could barely do anything to his opponents outside of explode. In many cases, Bronzong was set up fodder.

This is his greatest weakness in Black and White.

I'm just theorymonning here, as i am unexperienced in the B/W metagame. I don't think Bronzong can cut the mustard and stay OU this gen. Its a grim new world, full of horrible, horrible attackers who can kick Bronzong's ass. Ononokus can unleash his fury with a massively powerful earthquake, which will hit Bronzong because of Mold Breaker. Ulgamoth, who want to avoid stealth rock anyway, makes an excellent switch into Zong, whose weak earthquake hits only for neutral. At the same time, we are introduced to the horrible Shandera, and the multiheaded Sazandora, who can tear into the bell with their powerful fire blasts. Old nemeses got buffs also; Heatran can now use Nitro Charge/ Balloon, while speed boost Blaziken is already tearing enemies apart on PO's smogon server. Against these opponents, Bronzongs only option is to explode, and timely, also. Its also desprately hurt by the explosion nerf, while we are at it..

It doesn't help that Nuttorei has pretty much outclassed Bronzong in what it likes to do, and that he actually has an offensive presence (and thunder wave. And Spikes). Also note that auto weather pokemon have robbed it of another potential niche.

But the worst has nothing to do with how the metagame has changed, its the mechanical changes. The ability to choose one's lead and bronzong's predictable nature means that Bronzong can very easily be shut down (by taunt).

Its not all gloom and doom. I don't think a better switch into Doryuuzu, Salamence, and Garchomp exists. Bronzong is one of the bulkiest pokemon to set up trick room and Gravity, so i think he will always be on stand by for those teams. Bronzong also is still also a reliable user of stealth rocks. However, I don't think the center can hold. I think Bronzong will drop to UU, but he will find steady work there, sponging hits from Altaria and Flygon. He will be one of those awesome UUs that has capability to perform well in OU as well, as long as he's played right.

I think his tank set with be most popular.

Tank/ Support

Bronzong @ Leftovers
Levitate
Relaxed /252 HP / 84 Atk / 80 Def / 92 SpD
IV: 2 speed
Stealth Rock
Gyro Ball
Earthquake/ Explosion
Hidden Power Ice/ Hypnosis/ Payback

This is pretty much the standard from last gen.The funny thing is that this EV spread is probably the best for Bronzong. Theres a lot of wriggle room, and you can use can just sub in any support move you feel you like. Trick? Trick Room? Go ahead. Earthquake and Hidden Power Ice give you pretty good coverage, and allows you to hurt Doryuuzu, Salamence, and Garchomp. Gyro Ball is pretty good stab, and gets pretty good coverage with Earthquake. Explosion is still an interesting move, even with its horrible nerf. In this case, its less of a last ditch move, and more like u turn, a chance to gain momentum.

Bronzong @ Choice Band
Levitate
Brave/ 252 att/ 252 hp
IV: 0 speed
Gyro Ball
Earthquake
Payback
Trick/ Explosion.

A more offensive Bronzong. I think its kind of gimmick, but I'm actually eager to try this.

Offensive Trick Room
Bronzong @ Macho Brace
Brave (+Atk, -Speed)
Levitate
252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpDef
0 Speed IVs
-Trick Room
-Zen Headbutt
-Earthquake
-Gyro Ball

The consensus seems to be that this is bronzong's best bet this gen. I think its a very interesting set up. Trick room becomes Bronzong's set up move, like swords dance.

Calm Mind
Bronzong @ Leftovers
Bold/ 252 Hp/ 252 Def
Levitate
Flash Cannon/ Psychic
Hidden Power Fighting/ Ground/ Ice
Psychic/ Grass Knot
Calm mind

This set is unexpected, but is outclassed by other calm minders, notably Jirachi

Anyways, I hope someone else want to talk about this poor bell as much as i do.

 

[Colonel Darren]

Mental Herb might help Bronzong out a lot, actually. It stops Encore and Taunt, which might help the Bell pull off an unblockable Trick Room, Stealth Rock, or Hypnosis, and proceed at it's leisure then. However, I do not think of it as a good Dory check. Sure, it stops the mole, but it really can't do much back other than maybe set off a Trick Room and let another teammate handle it.

Also, Nattorei can't pull off a decent Calm Mind set. Bronzong can. Nattorei can't use a Sleep move. Bronzong can.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

oh, cool. What would you suggest for a calm mind set?

Bronzong @ Leftovers
Bold/ 252 Hp/ 252 Def
Levitate
Flash Cannon
Hidden Power Fighting/ Ground/ Ice
Psychic
Grass Knot

The main problem is lack of coverage, but i think this also looks fun too

 

[Colonel Darren]

Seems well enough. Psycho Shock might find merit over Psychic in a fight between Zong and Blissey/Chansey though.

Honestly, I'd like to focus on the differences between Nattorei and Zong.

Nattorei has Spikes, Leech Seed, Steel Thorns, a possibly better typing, and Power Whip.
Bronzong has Light Screen and Reflect, Gravity, Trick Room, Calm Mind, and an immunity-granting ability.

Honestly, I see Singles Bronzong use dropping rapidly, and doubles/triples/Rotation use being fairly high.

 

[Stoker]

I got completely and totally surprised by a Trick Room Life Orb Bronzong the other day, but I generally agree that most his offensive sets are mostly gimmicks. Honestly if he's packing Trick Room and Earthquake he might be able to take Dory, but I don't have any calcs with regards to that.

 

[jwoozie]

While a Calm Mind set would seem fun to use, it isn't very viable. It won't be hurting much with that poor base 79 special attack stat.
Bronzong hasn't changed this generation and I think it's best set will still be the Offensive Trick Room set, although Explosion's nerf hurts the set slightly.

 

[Onetwobanana]

I got completely and totally surprised by a Trick Room Life Orb Bronzong the other day, but I generally agree that most his offensive sets are mostly gimmicks. Honestly if he's packing Trick Room and Earthquake he might be able to take Dory, but I don't have any calcs with regards to that.

I run OTR Bronzong. The set looks like this:

Bronzong @ Life Orb
Brave (+Atk, -Speed)
Levitate
252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpDef
0 Speed IVs
-Trick Room
-Zen Headbutt
-Earthquake
-Gyro Ball

I can confirm that it kicks a lot of ass, and handles Dory amazingly well. 'zong is bulky enough to take a hit or two, making it a wonderful Dory check. In fact, I think it's the second best Dory check out there, after Gliscor. The plus side is that, at this point, nobody seems to be at all prepared for such an offensive variant of Bronzong, making it a near-guarantee that he'll get at least one KO, if not two or sometimes even three.

 

[googlyeyesultra]

Bronzong is probably best as a SR + screens user. Something like SR/Both Screens/Gyro ball @ light clay along with whatever defensive spread happens to patch the most holes for your team. Earthquake + any other attack variants can beat dory pretty handily, which is nice, and bronzong remains one of the better trick room users and abusers. Also, rain helps bronzong a lot, eliminating its only weakness.

 

[Bologo]

I run OTR Bronzong. The set looks like this:

Bronzong @ Life Orb
Brave (+Atk, -Speed)
Levitate
252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpDef
0 Speed IVs
-Trick Room
-Zen Headbutt
-Earthquake
-Gyro Ball

I can confirm that it kicks a lot of ass, and handles Dory amazingly well. 'zong is bulky enough to take a hit or two, making it a wonderful Dory check. In fact, I think it's the second best Dory check out there, after Gliscor. The plus side is that, at this point, nobody seems to be at all prepared for such an offensive variant of Bronzong, making it a near-guarantee that he'll get at least one KO, if not two or sometimes even three.

This is easily the best Bronzong set can run (although I'd run Hypnosis over Zen Headbutt since Zen Headbutt is weak from my experience). I personally feel that Bronzong may be getting fired from his supporting job soon since Nattorei and Skarm do it better, but as an Offensive Trick Room user, he's one of the best out there. People honestly need to look beyond that 89 base Attack and start paying attention to Gyro Ball's massive damage output. I often have OTR Bronzong on every one of my teams as a lategame cleaner and general check to fast sweepers. It works so well, and for some reason people don't expect it, even though it's one of Bronzong's biggest niches.

No other pokemon can dish out so much damage, go before everything under Trick Room, have all the bulk and resistances that Bronzong has, and be such good "glue" to a team like OTR Bronzong can. He doesn't even need to be on a dedicated Trick Room team; he fits on any team, and fits well. I keep saying that if people want to have an answer to all the 'suspects' barring Manaphy, people should run this guy, because he just plain destroys a lot of them. He's honestly a really good pokemon for a countersweep, and I've turned games around 6-2 to 2-0 with him.

Although the set I quoted shows Life Orb, I personally believe that Macho Brace is much, much better since it lets Gyro Ball hit for 150 BP on anything with 185 (IIRC) Speed or higher, which is awesome. Gyro Ball even has 100% accuracy, which very few 150 BP moves can boast.

I honestly don't understand why people refuse to use him...if Bronzong ends up as UU, it's probably not going to remain there for very long simply because people will realize how useful he is and he'll get used enough to become OU. I really don't foresee Bronzong as anything but OU.

 

[KokoaKiwi]

Calm Mind is amazing. I'm using a custom EV spread, but has Flash Cannon, HP Ground, Rest, and Calm Mind. Skarmory walls it erry day, but meh.

 

[Onetwobanana]

Although the set I quoted shows Life Orb, I personally believe that Macho Brace is much, much better since it lets Gyro Ball hit for 150 BP on anything with 185 (IIRC) Speed or higher, which is awesome. Gyro Ball even has 100% accuracy, which very few 150 BP moves can boast.

Is the damage lost on EQ / Zen Headbutt (if you're running it) worth losing Life Orb? I'm curious to see the calcs on that.

Edit: I agree, Zen Headbutt is incredibly situational. I only run it because I'm fairly certain it's Bronzong's strongest option against Roobushin and Machamp. Roobushin especially is a huge threat to watch out for.

 

[theJelly]

T'is a useful Walls lead for me atm, plus it normally survives enough to get them up again later. Definately still OU. I predict another tier between OU and Uber this generation; OUber.

 

[breh]

Zong sucks... I really can't diagnose why, to be frank, but it does.

Even though it only has one measly weakness, I just haven't seen it to be too successful when used against me. I do not have a single fire type on most of my teams (I do admittedly run HP Fire on a few attackers though).

Maybe it's just that it's really not so strong? yeah I know gyro ball has >9000 power yadda yadda but it can't set up, it can only really support for rocks, and it really is setup fodder overall to anything with substitute. Biggest problem though? It has no recovery move. If Bronzong had recover it'd be practically top tier OU right now. But without recovery, it's just all too easy to chip down its health in a way that you can't do to Skarm and that it's harder to do to Natt.

 

[Bologo]

Is the damage lost on EQ / Zen Headbutt (if you're running it) worth losing Life Orb? I'm curious to see the calcs on that.

Edit: I agree, Zen Headbutt is incredibly situational. I only run it because I'm fairly certain it's Bronzong's strongest option against Roobushin and Machamp. Roobushin especially is a huge threat to watch out for.

Well, you do need Stealth Rock for a lot of the OHKOs with EQ if you go with Macho Brace, but personally I find that something as bulky as Bronzong shouldn't be losing 10% per attack if it can help it. With Macho Brace you can actually do more damage to slower pokemon too, since Gyro Ball is still hitting for really high power against them. Simply put, Macho Brace actually lessens the amount of counters you have, because your weak non-STAB (or weak STAB if you use Zen Headbutt) moves aren't going to do shit to slow pokemon.

Ie. Let's take Snorlax for example (Snorlax with 4 HP/252 Atk/252 SDef).

Macho Brace 252 Atk Brave Gyro Ball = 33.1% - 39.2%
Life Orb 252 Atk Brave Gyro Ball = 21.6% - 25.5%

Macho Brace is doing much, much more damage against Snorlax, and it doesn't even have to deal with the 10% recoil from Life Orb with Macho Brace. It also gave you a fighting chance against something you'd be utterly screwed against with Life Orb.

yeah I know gyro ball has >9000 power yadda yadda but it can't set up, it can only really support for rocks, and it really is setup fodder overall to anything with substitute. Biggest problem though? It has no recovery move.

Uh, it uses Trick Room as a setup move, and it does that just fine. Also, unless the Substitute user is incredibly slow and resistant to Steel, they're still going to take a lot of damage from Gyro Ball, at the very least enough to break the Sub. Most of the Sub users who fit that description are going to have their Sub broken by Earthquake.

Honestly, I used to think Bronzong was absolute shit too before I felt like trying out an Offensive variant of Bronzong in Gen 4 which later became known as OTR Bronzong. After I used that variant, I wrote an analysis of it pretty quickly, and it started catching on near the end of Gen 4.

To put it simply, the reason you've been finding Bronzong underwhelming is that people are using it in support roles which it simply can't do as well as it used to. Honestly, Porygon2 and Dusclops are better Trick Room supporters, Nattorei and Skarm are better entry hazard layers, etc etc. However, nothing else can do physical OTR like Bronzong. Yes, I realize there's Rankurusu as a special OTR pokemon, but Bronzong is the only one who's good at doing it physically. Once people realize this, Bronzong will seem more potent IMO.

 

[Onetwobanana]

Uh, it uses Trick Room as a setup move, and it does that just fine.

This is a critical point that needs to be emphasized. Too many people are stuck thinking of TR as a purely support move. On this Bronzong variant, TR is much more comparable to Swords Dance or Nasty Plot. The point isn't to set TR up to help the team, it's exclusively to help Bronzong. The dude is selfish.

 

[Mclovin22]

I run OTR Bronzong. The set looks like this:

Bronzong @ Life Orb
Brave (+Atk, -Speed)
Levitate
252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpDef
0 Speed IVs
-Trick Room
-Zen Headbutt
-Earthquake
-Gyro Ball

I can confirm that it kicks a lot of ass, and handles Dory amazingly well. 'zong is bulky enough to take a hit or two, making it a wonderful Dory check. In fact, I think it's the second best Dory check out there, after Gliscor. The plus side is that, at this point, nobody seems to be at all prepared for such an offensive variant of Bronzong, making it a near-guarantee that he'll get at least one KO, if not two or sometimes even three.

I use Macho Brace as the held item because it slows him down more and makes gyro ball hit even harder. I don't like running LO because of the recoil he gets.

 

[vcordie]

Brozong really sucks this gen. He'll probably see great use in UU though.

 

[A Man In Black]

This is a critical point that needs to be emphasized. Too many people are stuck thinking of TR as a purely support move. On this Bronzong variant, TR is much more comparable to Swords Dance or Nasty Plot. The point isn't to set TR up to help the team, it's exclusively to help Bronzong. The dude is selfish.

Or almost exactly identical to Agility/Rock Polish.

It's interesting to see the rise of selfish trickroomers in Gen5. Bronzong, Rankurusu, and Slowbro/king in particular.

 

[masterful]

Dual Screener Zong must be mentioned as well

 

[More Cowbell]

This is a critical point that needs to be emphasized. Too many people are stuck thinking of TR as a purely support move. On this Bronzong variant, TR is much more comparable to Swords Dance or Nasty Plot. The point isn't to set TR up to help the team, it's exclusively to help Bronzong. The dude is selfish.

So, Bronzong uses TR as a set-up move, and once it is set up, it does... What? It isn't exactly going to sweep...

 

[Pombo]

yeah, and he cant abuse recover-cosmicpower-toxic like Deoxys-D can, weakening the opponent.

 

[Chieliee]

Brozong really sucks this gen. He'll probably see great use in UU though.

Zong is waay to powerful for UU.(its like a level 100 Arceus in LC.... *cough*exeggarate*cough*) I think he will be low OU, slowly falling in usage, but not in usefullness.

 

[Smasher89]

Balloon can help it actually using(or faking) both it's abilities in a way. Even a levitator can use it and trick with it in multiple ways!

 

[TheFourthChaser]

Brozong really sucks this gen. He'll probably see great use in UU though.

No way, I've used Bronzong this gen and it was great. Stops Gliscor, Randourusu(ground raijin), and Doryuuzu dead while still helping against mons like Skymin and Dragons. I ran the first set mentioned in the OP with a different ev spread, really good stuff.

 

[googlyeyesultra]

So, Bronzong uses TR as a set-up move, and once it is set up, it does... What? It isn't exactly going to sweep...

Except it does sweep, with max attack and a 150 BP STAB move. Mind you, not without some support, but that holds for everything. Think of it like a bulkier, faster (in trick room), ground-immune agiligross.