Goddess Briyella
Banned deucer.
Overview
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name: All-Out Attacker
move 1: Rock Slide
move 2: Superpower
move 3: Zen Headbutt / Earthquake
move 4: Crunch / Earthquake / Rock Polish
ability: Sheer Force
item: Life Orb
evs: 60 HP / 236 Atk / 212 Spe
nature: Adamant
Moves
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name: Choice Scarf
move 1: Stone Edge / Rock Slide
move 2: Earthquake
move 3: Superpower
move 4: Zen Headbutt
ability: Mold Breaker / Sheer Force
item: Choice Scarf
evs: 140 HP / 236 Atk / 132 Spe
nature: Adamant
Moves
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- One of the Fossil Pokemon from Generation IV
- The absolute highest Attack stat of all Little Cup Pokemon, including Scyther if it were legal
- Hits the entire tier obscenely hard and Rock-type STAB is incredible in Little Cup
- Has a lot of weaknesses and doesn't have the best bulk outside of HP
- Weak to tons of priority attacks
- Cannot reliably function on its own without both the support of teammates as well as an item, but is well worth it for the power it provides when granted these things
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name: All-Out Attacker
move 1: Rock Slide
move 2: Superpower
move 3: Zen Headbutt / Earthquake
move 4: Crunch / Earthquake / Rock Polish
ability: Sheer Force
item: Life Orb
evs: 60 HP / 236 Atk / 212 Spe
nature: Adamant
Moves
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- Rock Slide is the obligatory STAB attack
- Earthquake rounds out the reliable EdgeQuake coverage
- Zen Headbutt provides additional coverage and gets a hard super effective hit on the Fighting-types that wall Cranidos's STAB, as well as Poison-types like Skrelp, Tentacool, and Koffing (a reasonable switch-in)
- Crunch is an optional coverage move for hitting Bronzor, which walls the entire set otherwise and also threatens Cranidos with its super effective STAB Flash Cannon
- Superpower is a very strong attack for hitting a variety of targets for super-effective damage
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- The given natures and EVs give Cranidos a huge raw Attack stat of 24 without items or abilities, and attacks from this set are further boosted by Life Orb and Sheer Force (Earthquake is the only move on the set that doesn't get the Sheer Force boost)
- Rock Slide is used over Stone Edge for the Sheer Force boost as well as the more tolerable accuracy it has, which well outweighs the high-crit chance of Stone Edge
- 212 Speed EVs allow Cranidos enough Speed to outspeed mons that have up to 19 Speed after Sticky Web (a good few of the important ones are immune to Sticky Web but it is still effective)
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- This set works very well with Sticky Web support, so that Cranidos can outspeed grounded foes and overwhelm them easily with brute force; Cranidos also crushes most users of Defog very easily, making it difficult and risky for Sticky Web to be removed in its presence
- Don't make the mistake of thinking you can possibly benefit from flinch hax; keep in mind that Rock Slide and Zen Headbutt have their flinch chance removed by Sheer Force and therefore will never get flinches on their targets
- Bear in mind that Earthquake is the only move on the set that doesn't get the Sheer Force boost and thus is also the only one to result in Life Orb recoil, something to keep in mind when choosing attacks and your opponent has priority users waiting for you to wittle your own health into KO range
- Bear in mind that Crunch makes contact and therefore triggers recoil from Rough Skin, Iron Barbs, and Rocky Helmet, another seemingly small and often overlooked factor that can honestly make a difference in the long run when faced with priority later in matches
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- Cranidos would like a Sticky Web setter to make this set more effective
- Cranidos appreciates any teammates who can help deal with Defog users that can render this set mediocre by removing Sticky Web; ideal teammates include Chinchou or Magnemite
- Physically defensive Slowpoke is a perfect partner, sponging all of the priority attacks that Cranidos is weak to as well as the Fighting-type attacks that destroy it; Slowpoke's Thunder Wave can further assist Cranidos in its Speed advantage against the opponent in addition to Sticky Web
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name: Choice Scarf
move 1: Stone Edge / Rock Slide
move 2: Earthquake
move 3: Superpower
move 4: Zen Headbutt
ability: Mold Breaker / Sheer Force
item: Choice Scarf
evs: 140 HP / 236 Atk / 132 Spe
nature: Adamant
Moves
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- STAB Stone Edge destroys worlds; Rock Slide is an alternative option with less power but more acceptable accuracy
- Earthquake is a reliable Ground-type attack to complement Cranidos's STAB
- Superpower is an extremely potent and useful attack that gets hard super effective hits on a ton of important things, mainly Steel types but also things like Munchlax and it hits Tyrunt notably harder than Earthquake
- Zen Headbutt puts the hurt on Fighting-types that resist Rock
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- 140 EVs in HP allow Cranidos to hit 25 HP, an important number that minimizes Stealth Rock damage if it has to take it, being 1 point above a number divisible by 8
- 236 EVs in Attack with a boosting nature lets Cranidos hit a huge 24 Attack stat, with its attacks bar Earthquake further boosted by Sheer Force (if Sheer Force is used)
- 132 EVs in Spe puts Cranidos at 21 Speed with Choice Scarf equipped, which is enough to outspeed the entire unboosted tier
- Alternatively, Zen Headbutt can be used with Adamant nature and Mold Breaker, to allow not only a super hard hit on the Fighting-types that wall Stone Edge/Rock Slide, but also to allow Cranidos's moves to bypass Sturdy for OHKOs and can be especially helpful against common threats such as Dwebble, Tirtouga, and Magnemite, since the bulk of their sets is compromised by reliance on Berry Juice and lack of Eviolite and can therefore easily be OHKOed by Cranidos's super effective attacks; being able to steamroll past Sturdy + Berry Juice like this is a very coveted thing in the current metagame since the strategy is easily abusable and often difficult to stop
- Stone Edge should be used with Mold Breaker for the extra power; Rock Slide should be used with Sheer Force since it's more accurate and gets the boost
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- This set doesn't rely on Sticky Web support and is therefore more flexible for teams
- Cranidos can serve as both an all-out attacker and a great revenge killer with a Choice Scarf thanks to its decent Speed and god-like physical offensive power
- As stated before, Cranidos is very weak to priority and absolutely must be kept away from it; its HP can allow it to take one good super effective priority attack if it has to (as long as Cranidos's health is kept intact), and can often do so better than the above set because there is no Life Orb recoil from using Earthquake here
- Ice Beam can also be used against random foes that don't take much from Cranidos's other moves and are Ice-weak with low Special Defense, such as Phanpy and Tangela, and if they have taken some previous damage it can KO whereas the other moves cannot
- Mold Breaker allows Earthquake to hit Koffing, Bronzor, and Gastly for hard super effective damage despite their immunity to Ground offered by Levitate; interestingly, these three are also the only Pokemon in the tier to wall the unresisted Fairy/Ground coverage
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- Physically defensive Slowpoke, for reasons mentioned in previous set
- Helioptile and Chinchou help against the bulky-Waters that might give Cranidos problems
- Physically defensive Ferroseed with Leech Seed and Thunder Wave can punish Knock Off users that try to remove Cranidos's needed items, in addition to Iron Barbs recoil upon contact
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- Rock Polish really sticks out, and is awesome to grant Cranidos the Speed it needs to steamroll through teams; unfortunately, the sheer amount of super-effective priority it faces in the relevant metagame will mean it will be either dying often or switching out often (losing stat boost), making Choice Scarf's instant boost more practical to use
- Swords Dance has a similar issue but could be used with Sticky Web support for maximum
unholy assrapedestruction if done very carefully
- Cranidos gets Flamethrower/Fire Blast and Thunder/Thunderbolt, moves that can work well despite being special attacks if Sheer Force + Life Orb is used, but the moves listed in the above sets are generally the best for the current metagame
- Cranidos has access to Fire Punch and Thunder Punch but the coverage they provide is often overshadowed by that of its other moves; Fire Blast would do more to most things you would want to hit with Fire Punch anyway
- Iron Head is an option if you hate Fairy-types, but none of the Fairy-types in the tier resist Cranidos's STAB anyway, and Earthquake already hits Rock-types
- Head Smash is an extreme option that might actually be good late-game if using the Scarf set and you need to eliminate a high-health troublesome threat quickly; however, the sub-par accuracy on this move and the fact that it WILL bring Cranidos into KO range from most priority attacks as well as almost any neutral hit in the game makes this rather impractical in most cases when there's Rock Slide/Stone Edge
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- Focus Sash Diglett/Trapinch can trap Cranidos and kill it in most cases
- Priority users, especially Croagunk, Timburr, and Carvanha, can really give Cranidos problems
- Bulky Fighting-types in general are hard for Cranidos to deal with a lot of the time and can deal serious damage back
- Cranidos does poorly against weather reliant sweepers; Hippopotas can beat just about any Cranidos set one-on-one without much trouble; any Sand sweeper (Sand Rush), Sun sweeper (Chlorophyll), or Rain sweeper (Rain Dance/Swift Swim) can easily get rid of Cranidos as well regardless of Sticky Web or Choice Scarf
- Other Scarfers with super effective STAB attacks beat both of these sets most of the time
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