Cubone (by comatthew6, if you were wondering)
[Overview]
<p> If you like slow but powerful Pokémon, then Cubone is the one for you. It has a good physical movepool, and the Attack stat to back it up. It has one distinct advantage, Thick Club, which allows it to play as a Choice Banded Pokémon that has the freedom to switch moves. Unfortunately, Cubone's low Speed prevents it from being able to sweep without some form of support, like Agility passing, Trick Room, or paralysis; however, it is a great partner for all three of those strategies. Its shaky defenses are not exactly reliable, so switching it in directly is a risk you may not wish to take. However, once in the battle, Cubone can be very useful at clearing out certain key Pokémon to help your team win the match.</p>
[SET]
name: Physical Sweeper
Move 1: Earthquake
Move 2: Double-Edge
Move 3: Fire Punch
Move 4: Substitute / Ice Beam
Ability: Rock Head
Item: Thick Club
Nature: Adamant / Brave
Evs: 196 HP / 196 Atk / 76 Def / 36 SpD
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>This set is probably the most effective set that Cubone can run, and is great if all you need is a bulky heavy-hitter on your team. With Cubone's massive Attack and reasonable defenses, it can play like a standard bulky Choice Band user, except it gets the freedom to change attacks; all thanks to Thick Club, which doubles its Attack. Earthquake is obvious, being Cubone's basic STAB move; it will most likely OHKO anything that is not resistant or immune to it. Double-Edge is effective at hitting almost everything that Earthquake doesn't, barring Ghost-types with Levitate (and Drifloon). Pokémon that are immune to both Double-Edge and Earthquake are hit hard by Fire Punch. For example, here are some damage calculations:</p>
<ul class="damage_calculation">
<li>Cubone Fire Punch vs. 116HP Gastly: 85.7% - 104.8% (40% chance of OHKO)
<li>Cubone Fire Punch vs. 196HP / 36Def Impish Duskull: 47.6% - 57.1% (3HKO through Oran, possible 2HKO if it gets a minimum damage roll followed by a maximum one)
<li>Cubone Fire Punch vs. 196HP / 4Def Drifloon: 60.7% - 71.4% (guaranteed 2HKO)
<li>Cubone Fire Punch vs. MaxHP/ MaxDef Impish Levitate Bronzor: 72% - 88% (2HKO through Oran)
</ul>
<p>In addition, Fire Punch serves as Cubone's weapon-of-choice against Grass-type Pokémon and Bronzor. Substitute can help ease prediction somewhat, as Cubone's immense power tends to cause switches. Alternatively, Ice Beam can be used over Substitute for a more powerful hit against Gligar; just remember to transfer the 36 EVs from Special Defense to Special Attack; with 36 Special Attack EVs, Gligar is OHKOed by Ice Beam 77% of the time, and is OHKOed 100% with Stealth Rock in play.</p>
[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
<p>Being the slow, bulky sweeper that it is, Cubone absolutely loves Trick Room support. Gastly, Porygon, and Slowpoke are all effective at setting up Trick Room, which in turn allows Cubone to take advantage of his horrible Speed stat. Slowpoke is a notable Trick Room supporter because it can take any Water-type attack aimed at Cubone, while Cubone can come in on any Electric-type attack. Unfortunately, both Pokemon share a weakness to Grass, so it's good to have a Trick Room Bronzor waiting in the wings to sponge Grass-type hits.</p>
[SET]
name: Baton Pass Recipient
Move 1: Earthquake
Move 2: Double-Edge
Move 3: Fire Punch
Move 4: Swords Dance / Substitute
Ability: Rock Head
Item: Thick Club
Nature: Jolly / Adamant
Evs: 36 HP / 196 Atk / 36 SpD / 236 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>While the first set is designed to utilize Cubone as a bulky tank, this set focuses on Cubone's talent for sweeping after receiving Baton Passed Speed boosts.</p>
<p>Swords Dance's purpose is obvious; after a Swords Dance, the attacks listed can literally OHKO the entire metagame. Just one Swords Dance gives Cubone a massive Attack stat of 56 or 60 (depending on Cubone's nature). Substitute, on the other hand, allows Cubone to take advantage of its ability to cause switches. Even without a Swords Dance boost, Cubone is still incredibly dangerous, and Substitute just compounds that by giving protection against revenge killers and as well as easing prediction. Substitute is the option for the cautious player; it might not seal the game, but it will help increase Cubone's survivability on the field. Swords Dance can effectively bring you automatic victory if it gets set up properly, but Cubone's relatively poor Special Defense means that an incorrect prediction could be spell instantaneous doom for Cubone.</p>
<p>Choosing Cubone's nature is a matter of personal preference. Jolly is preferred here, as 14 Speed allows Cubone to outpace all non-Choice Scarfed Pokémon after a +1 Speed boost, while +2 Speed gives it enough Speed to outpace all Choice Scarfed Pokémon, except Voltorb, Elekid, and Diglett. An Adamant nature, however, is still a good option if you're either relying only on Speed boosts to be passed, or if you're relying on pure brute force.</p>
[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
<p>Aipom, Gligar, and Venonat all work well with this set. They can effectively pass an Agility or two to Cubone, giving it enough Speed to outpace all non-Choice Scarfed Pokémon, as well as many Scarfed Pokémon. Aipom and Venonat work the best out of the three, as they don't share any common weaknesses with Cubone, so there is less of a risk involved when it's time to pass.</p>
[TEAM OPTIONS]
<p>Pokémon that can set up Trick Room work extremely well with Cubone's physical sweeper set. The Pokémon that can do this effectively are Gastly, Slowpoke, and Porygon. Porygon and Slowpoke both have access to a recovery move, and can inflict paralysis on opposing Pokémon, giving Cubone a much easier time sweeping. Munchlax and Krabby both work extremely well with Cubone as they both can function admirably under Trick Room and resist Ice-type attacks; however, Krabby shares a Grass-type weakness with Cubone. Aipom can effectively Agilipass to Cubone, giving it the Speed to an extremely powerful sweeping force. Having Stealth Rock support on a team that uses Cubone is also a good idea; Stealth Rock will make sure that Pokemon holding a Focus Sash don't stop a sweep abruptly, and it can also help turn some 2HKOs into OHKOs. Essentially any Snover set will also pair well with Cubone, as Snover resists Water, Grass, and Ice. In addition, the permanent hailstorm Snover summons renders the Focus Sashes of all non-Ice-types useless.</p>
[OPTIONAL CHANGES]
<p>Cubone has quite a few options in terms of attacks: Iron Head, Iron Tail, Bonemerang, Focus Punch, Rock Slide, ThunderPunch, and Knock Off. Bonemerang could be useful for breaking Substitutes, but beyond that these moves are inferior to the ones listed in the above sets. ThunderPunch isn't terrible, but it doesn't hit anything important that Double-Edge or Fire Punch can't hit just as hard, if not harder, bar Mantyke. Knock Off is an interesting support option that might be of some use, if only Cubone had better bulk, better resistances, or a higher Speed stat. In general, Knock Off's special effect is not as valuable as outright KOing your opponent or setting up for a sweep. The only really special attacks to choose from are Blizzard and Ice Beam, which pose a huge threat to any Gligar that are switching in with hopes of ruining a potential sweep.</p>
<p>Cubone also learns Belly Drum, but it's too slow to stat up and sweep with that method, and its Attack is already high enough to do significant damage. With its decent bulk, Cubone can be effectively used as a Stealth Rock lead, and Protect can also be used over Substitute for scouting purposes.</p>
<p>196 HP / 196 Atk / 76 Def / 36 SpD is the standard EV spread for Cubone, giving the best combination of Attack and Defense. If you're running Ice Beam, stick the Special Defense EVs into Special Attack for the increased power against Gligar. If you're planning on passing Cubone some Speed, 36 HP /196 Atk / 236 Spe is the preferred spread, possibly with Jolly to hit the magic number of 14, which allows Cubone to outpace all non-Choice Scarfed Pokémon after a +1 boost.</p>
[COUNTERS]
<p>Cubone's absolutely massive power means that it's incredibly difficult to switch into. However, the only Pokémon that stand a chance at coming in are those that can avoid its incredibly powerful STAB Earthquake. This limits the counters to Pokémon that have the ability Levitate, and Flying-type Pokémon.</p>
<p>Bronzor may seem like a good counter at first, but its incredibly low Speed combined with a weakness to Cubone's Fire Punch makes Bronzor ineffective at stopping Cubone. Gligar is also an iffy counter, being OHKOed by Ice Beam after taking Stealth Rock damage, and being forced to hit Cubone with neutral attacks on Cubone's stronger, but still sub-par, physical defense. Mantyke can come in with its immunity to Earthquake and KO or scare off Cubone with a STAB Surf or Hydro Pump.</p>
<p>That brings us to our last ditch effort for a Cubone counter: Levitating Ghosts. Gastly is a far less effective counter. The standard +SpA Energy Ball, its most effective attack against Cubone, only OHKOes 2.56% of the time, while Cubone's Fire Punch OHKOes 40% of the time. However, if Gastly is running a boosting item like Life Orb or Choice Specs, it can outpace and OHKO Cubone with little to no trouble. Duskull can survive Fire Punch, but its poor Speed lets Cubone easily outpace it and set up a Substitute, allowing Cubone to avoid a Will-O-Wisp. Finally, there is Drifloon, which loses automatically if Cubone is packing Rock Slide; however, if it's using Fire Punch, there's still a chance, since Fire Punch does not OHKO Drifloon even with Stealth Rock on the field. However, the damage Fire Punch does to Drifloon is just enough for Drifloon's Petaya Berry to activate, which ups its Special Attack to a level where it OHKOes 100% of the time.</p>
<p>If Cubone successfully pulls off its Swords Dance and Agilipass combo, it can become extremely hard to stop. Squirtle can use a combination of Fake Out and Aqua Jet against it to deal a fair amount of damage. The remaining counters depend on Cubone's nature. Jolly +2 Cubone has 28 Speed, which can only be tied with at best by nearly all Choice Scarf Pokémon—anything less than 28 Speed is KOed, and anything more can only muster a revenge kill. Essentially, the only counters to a boosted Cubone are priority users, in addition to Pokémon that can kill it before it can manage to set up.</p>
[Overview]
<p> If you like slow but powerful Pokémon, then Cubone is the one for you. It has a good physical movepool, and the Attack stat to back it up. It has one distinct advantage, Thick Club, which allows it to play as a Choice Banded Pokémon that has the freedom to switch moves. Unfortunately, Cubone's low Speed prevents it from being able to sweep without some form of support, like Agility passing, Trick Room, or paralysis; however, it is a great partner for all three of those strategies. Its shaky defenses are not exactly reliable, so switching it in directly is a risk you may not wish to take. However, once in the battle, Cubone can be very useful at clearing out certain key Pokémon to help your team win the match.</p>
[SET]
name: Physical Sweeper
Move 1: Earthquake
Move 2: Double-Edge
Move 3: Fire Punch
Move 4: Substitute / Ice Beam
Ability: Rock Head
Item: Thick Club
Nature: Adamant / Brave
Evs: 196 HP / 196 Atk / 76 Def / 36 SpD
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>This set is probably the most effective set that Cubone can run, and is great if all you need is a bulky heavy-hitter on your team. With Cubone's massive Attack and reasonable defenses, it can play like a standard bulky Choice Band user, except it gets the freedom to change attacks; all thanks to Thick Club, which doubles its Attack. Earthquake is obvious, being Cubone's basic STAB move; it will most likely OHKO anything that is not resistant or immune to it. Double-Edge is effective at hitting almost everything that Earthquake doesn't, barring Ghost-types with Levitate (and Drifloon). Pokémon that are immune to both Double-Edge and Earthquake are hit hard by Fire Punch. For example, here are some damage calculations:</p>
<ul class="damage_calculation">
<li>Cubone Fire Punch vs. 116HP Gastly: 85.7% - 104.8% (40% chance of OHKO)
<li>Cubone Fire Punch vs. 196HP / 36Def Impish Duskull: 47.6% - 57.1% (3HKO through Oran, possible 2HKO if it gets a minimum damage roll followed by a maximum one)
<li>Cubone Fire Punch vs. 196HP / 4Def Drifloon: 60.7% - 71.4% (guaranteed 2HKO)
<li>Cubone Fire Punch vs. MaxHP/ MaxDef Impish Levitate Bronzor: 72% - 88% (2HKO through Oran)
</ul>
<p>In addition, Fire Punch serves as Cubone's weapon-of-choice against Grass-type Pokémon and Bronzor. Substitute can help ease prediction somewhat, as Cubone's immense power tends to cause switches. Alternatively, Ice Beam can be used over Substitute for a more powerful hit against Gligar; just remember to transfer the 36 EVs from Special Defense to Special Attack; with 36 Special Attack EVs, Gligar is OHKOed by Ice Beam 77% of the time, and is OHKOed 100% with Stealth Rock in play.</p>
[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
<p>Being the slow, bulky sweeper that it is, Cubone absolutely loves Trick Room support. Gastly, Porygon, and Slowpoke are all effective at setting up Trick Room, which in turn allows Cubone to take advantage of his horrible Speed stat. Slowpoke is a notable Trick Room supporter because it can take any Water-type attack aimed at Cubone, while Cubone can come in on any Electric-type attack. Unfortunately, both Pokemon share a weakness to Grass, so it's good to have a Trick Room Bronzor waiting in the wings to sponge Grass-type hits.</p>
[SET]
name: Baton Pass Recipient
Move 1: Earthquake
Move 2: Double-Edge
Move 3: Fire Punch
Move 4: Swords Dance / Substitute
Ability: Rock Head
Item: Thick Club
Nature: Jolly / Adamant
Evs: 36 HP / 196 Atk / 36 SpD / 236 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>While the first set is designed to utilize Cubone as a bulky tank, this set focuses on Cubone's talent for sweeping after receiving Baton Passed Speed boosts.</p>
<p>Swords Dance's purpose is obvious; after a Swords Dance, the attacks listed can literally OHKO the entire metagame. Just one Swords Dance gives Cubone a massive Attack stat of 56 or 60 (depending on Cubone's nature). Substitute, on the other hand, allows Cubone to take advantage of its ability to cause switches. Even without a Swords Dance boost, Cubone is still incredibly dangerous, and Substitute just compounds that by giving protection against revenge killers and as well as easing prediction. Substitute is the option for the cautious player; it might not seal the game, but it will help increase Cubone's survivability on the field. Swords Dance can effectively bring you automatic victory if it gets set up properly, but Cubone's relatively poor Special Defense means that an incorrect prediction could be spell instantaneous doom for Cubone.</p>
<p>Choosing Cubone's nature is a matter of personal preference. Jolly is preferred here, as 14 Speed allows Cubone to outpace all non-Choice Scarfed Pokémon after a +1 Speed boost, while +2 Speed gives it enough Speed to outpace all Choice Scarfed Pokémon, except Voltorb, Elekid, and Diglett. An Adamant nature, however, is still a good option if you're either relying only on Speed boosts to be passed, or if you're relying on pure brute force.</p>
[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
<p>Aipom, Gligar, and Venonat all work well with this set. They can effectively pass an Agility or two to Cubone, giving it enough Speed to outpace all non-Choice Scarfed Pokémon, as well as many Scarfed Pokémon. Aipom and Venonat work the best out of the three, as they don't share any common weaknesses with Cubone, so there is less of a risk involved when it's time to pass.</p>
[TEAM OPTIONS]
<p>Pokémon that can set up Trick Room work extremely well with Cubone's physical sweeper set. The Pokémon that can do this effectively are Gastly, Slowpoke, and Porygon. Porygon and Slowpoke both have access to a recovery move, and can inflict paralysis on opposing Pokémon, giving Cubone a much easier time sweeping. Munchlax and Krabby both work extremely well with Cubone as they both can function admirably under Trick Room and resist Ice-type attacks; however, Krabby shares a Grass-type weakness with Cubone. Aipom can effectively Agilipass to Cubone, giving it the Speed to an extremely powerful sweeping force. Having Stealth Rock support on a team that uses Cubone is also a good idea; Stealth Rock will make sure that Pokemon holding a Focus Sash don't stop a sweep abruptly, and it can also help turn some 2HKOs into OHKOs. Essentially any Snover set will also pair well with Cubone, as Snover resists Water, Grass, and Ice. In addition, the permanent hailstorm Snover summons renders the Focus Sashes of all non-Ice-types useless.</p>
[OPTIONAL CHANGES]
<p>Cubone has quite a few options in terms of attacks: Iron Head, Iron Tail, Bonemerang, Focus Punch, Rock Slide, ThunderPunch, and Knock Off. Bonemerang could be useful for breaking Substitutes, but beyond that these moves are inferior to the ones listed in the above sets. ThunderPunch isn't terrible, but it doesn't hit anything important that Double-Edge or Fire Punch can't hit just as hard, if not harder, bar Mantyke. Knock Off is an interesting support option that might be of some use, if only Cubone had better bulk, better resistances, or a higher Speed stat. In general, Knock Off's special effect is not as valuable as outright KOing your opponent or setting up for a sweep. The only really special attacks to choose from are Blizzard and Ice Beam, which pose a huge threat to any Gligar that are switching in with hopes of ruining a potential sweep.</p>
<p>Cubone also learns Belly Drum, but it's too slow to stat up and sweep with that method, and its Attack is already high enough to do significant damage. With its decent bulk, Cubone can be effectively used as a Stealth Rock lead, and Protect can also be used over Substitute for scouting purposes.</p>
<p>196 HP / 196 Atk / 76 Def / 36 SpD is the standard EV spread for Cubone, giving the best combination of Attack and Defense. If you're running Ice Beam, stick the Special Defense EVs into Special Attack for the increased power against Gligar. If you're planning on passing Cubone some Speed, 36 HP /196 Atk / 236 Spe is the preferred spread, possibly with Jolly to hit the magic number of 14, which allows Cubone to outpace all non-Choice Scarfed Pokémon after a +1 boost.</p>
[COUNTERS]
<p>Cubone's absolutely massive power means that it's incredibly difficult to switch into. However, the only Pokémon that stand a chance at coming in are those that can avoid its incredibly powerful STAB Earthquake. This limits the counters to Pokémon that have the ability Levitate, and Flying-type Pokémon.</p>
<p>Bronzor may seem like a good counter at first, but its incredibly low Speed combined with a weakness to Cubone's Fire Punch makes Bronzor ineffective at stopping Cubone. Gligar is also an iffy counter, being OHKOed by Ice Beam after taking Stealth Rock damage, and being forced to hit Cubone with neutral attacks on Cubone's stronger, but still sub-par, physical defense. Mantyke can come in with its immunity to Earthquake and KO or scare off Cubone with a STAB Surf or Hydro Pump.</p>
<p>That brings us to our last ditch effort for a Cubone counter: Levitating Ghosts. Gastly is a far less effective counter. The standard +SpA Energy Ball, its most effective attack against Cubone, only OHKOes 2.56% of the time, while Cubone's Fire Punch OHKOes 40% of the time. However, if Gastly is running a boosting item like Life Orb or Choice Specs, it can outpace and OHKO Cubone with little to no trouble. Duskull can survive Fire Punch, but its poor Speed lets Cubone easily outpace it and set up a Substitute, allowing Cubone to avoid a Will-O-Wisp. Finally, there is Drifloon, which loses automatically if Cubone is packing Rock Slide; however, if it's using Fire Punch, there's still a chance, since Fire Punch does not OHKO Drifloon even with Stealth Rock on the field. However, the damage Fire Punch does to Drifloon is just enough for Drifloon's Petaya Berry to activate, which ups its Special Attack to a level where it OHKOes 100% of the time.</p>
<p>If Cubone successfully pulls off its Swords Dance and Agilipass combo, it can become extremely hard to stop. Squirtle can use a combination of Fake Out and Aqua Jet against it to deal a fair amount of damage. The remaining counters depend on Cubone's nature. Jolly +2 Cubone has 28 Speed, which can only be tied with at best by nearly all Choice Scarf Pokémon—anything less than 28 Speed is KOed, and anything more can only muster a revenge kill. Essentially, the only counters to a boosted Cubone are priority users, in addition to Pokémon that can kill it before it can manage to set up.</p>
