D/P Stall Zapdos

[Wayff]

Zapdos

I was going to post this later, but Gaudetjaja made me post it now, so here it is...

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[SET]
Name: SubRoost Zapdos
Move 1: Substitute
Move 2: Thunderbolt
Move 3: Hidden Power Ice / Baton Pass
Move 4: Roost
Item: Leftovers
evs: 252 HP / 160 SpD / 96 Spe
Nature: Timid

[SET COMMENTS]
<p>Zapdos's best way of annoying the opponent is stalling them out with Substitute and Roost when Toxic Spikes are up, and it does quite a good job at it.</p>

<p>The primary aim of this set is to be used in conjunction with Toxic Spikes and rack up poison damage on Zapdos' usual switch-ins. This includes Celebi, non-Cleric Blissey, and Swampert. It is similar to Sleep Talk Zapdos but with more reliability; Substitute and Roost used wisely will keep you at high health while blocking status.</p>

<p>Almost all Flying Pokemon immune to Toxic Spikes will fall to Zapdos' STAB Thunderbolt, or in Gliscor's case, Hidden Power Ice. However, if you don't use Hidden Power Ice, you can Baton Pass to another pokemon that can beat Gliscor. Few Steel Pokemon can reliably switch in (with the exception of Sleep Talking Lava Plume Heatran and Special Defense oriented Jirachi), as Adamant Life Orb Lucario is outsped and 2HKOd provided he attacks, Bronzong and Forretress cannot touch Zapdos, Metagross without Ice Punch can be outstalled, and Empoleon stands very little chance.</p>

<p>This version of Zapdos outspeeds Lucario and can take multiple hits from it. It's the same story with Choice Heracross, as long as you don't switch into Stone Edge. As long as one of Tyranitar's Stone Edge misses, Zapdos can outstall Tyranitar; however, don't rely on the miss. Zapdos does a good job outstalling most walls and outspeeding many Pokemon. Zapdos gets a free Subsitute if it comes in on a locked Earthquake from Choice Band Tyranitar, Garchomp, or Mamoswine. The same goes for Heatran's Choiced Earth Power.</p>

<p>Finally, with it's Pressure ability, Zapdos can handle the "safer" switchins like Cresselia, Cleric Blissey and Sleep Talking Snorlax by PP stalling them into Struggling. Magnezone, of course, remains the safest switch-in.</p>

 

[Amelia]

You know, this looks like the Moltres stall set, except that instead of Hidden Power, it used Toxic.

I know quite well that this thing doesn't exactly need Toxic to hit the flyers, since it has Thunderbolt. However, I propose taking out HP Grass (Which is used mainly for Swampert), to leave it with HP Ice. This is because you can outstall Swampert with Toxic Spikes, but you do want to kill those 4X weak to Ice (Dragons, basically) as fast as possible.

 

[Wayff]

Yeah, thanks Amelia.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

The nature should be Timid, not calm. 96 neutral nature leaves you with 260 rather than the 285/286 the set normally runs, and the number that you seem to think you currently have :/

Also most people know the set by the name SubRoost Zapdos, if that makes any difference.

 

[Wayff]

Oh woops, it was a typo. I'll change the name.

 

[timw06]

<p>Zapdos's most annoying way of annoying the opponent is stalling them out with Substitute when Toxic Spikes are up, and it does quite a good job at it.</p>

Change the second annoying to something else.

<p>In order to use this set, you need to have set up Toxic Spikes first because, if you just stall, you can't do anything to their health. Spikes and Stealth Rock are also recommended. If you have Toxic Spikes up, you can slowly drain away their health. Roserade gets special mention to set up Toxic Spikes because of its speed.</p>

Moved a comma

<p>Zapdos also does a good job countering a lot of threats: Should you ever see a Blissey, and you have Toxic Spikes up, you shouldn't run. Zapdos can outstall Blissey or force it to run. Stalling Zapdos outspeeds Lucario and can take multiple hits from it. It's the same story with Choice Heracross, as long as you don't switch into Stone Edge. Zapdos can outstall Tyranitar if one Stone Edge misses, though don't rely on that. Zapdos does a good job outstalling most walls and outspeeding many Pokemon. Zapdos gets in a free Substitute if it comes in on a Choiced Earthquake from Mamoswine, Garchomp, Tyranitar etc. The same goes for Heatran's Choiced Earth Power.</p>

This last bit reads like a list. Also, try not to start all your sentences with "Zapdos".

Otherwise, a very well written analysis.

 

[ryubahamut]

in fact, change the first annoying, the second annoying as a verb seems to be the norm when representing the action in question.

 

[Wayff]

Thanks guys, I edited it.

 

[gorm]

hey its my bird ;D

definitel mention pp stalling with pressure, especially relevant vs at bliss or resting laxen or whatever, also "obibliss" is completely fucked against this thing since flamethrower cant even break it's sub.

In order to use this set, you need to have set up Toxic Spikes first because, if you just stall, you can't do anything to their health. Spikes and Stealth Rock are also recommended. If you have Toxic Spikes up, you can slowly drain away their health. Roserade gets special mention to set up Toxic Spikes because of its speed.


<p>Zapdos also does a good job countering a lot of threats. Should you ever see a Blissey and you have Toxic Spikes up, you shouldn't run. It can outstall Blissey or force it to run.

i would change this whole para and a half to:

The primary aim of this set is to be used in conjunction with Toxic Spikes and rack up toxic damage on Zapdos' usual switchins. This includes Celebi, non Cleric Blissey and Swampert. Similar to sleep talk Zapdos but with more reliability, Substitute and Roost used wisely will keep you at high health while blocking status.

Almost all Flying pokemon immune to Toxic Spikes will fall to Zapdos' STAB Thunderbolt, or in Gliscor's case, Hidden Power Ice. Few Steel Pokemon can reliably switch in (with the exception of Sleep Talking Lava Plume Heatran and Special Defense oriented Jirachi), as Adamant Life Orb Lucario is outsped and 2HKOd provided he attacks, Bronzong and Forretress cannot touch Zapdos, Metagross without Ice Punch can be outstalled, And Empoleon Stands very little chance
Finally, With it's Pressure ability, Zapdos can handle the "safer" switchins like Cressalia, Cleric Blissey and Sleep Talking Snorlax by PP stalling them into struggling. Magnezone of course remains the safest switch.

maybe too long but ive used it for a while ;D

I INVENTED IT

 

[Wayff]

Bird Inventor. Everyone uses that annoying set though. I'll edit the set comments.

 

[darkie]

<p>Zapdos's best way of annoying the opponent is stalling them out with Substitute and Roost when Toxic Spikes are up, and it does quite a good job at it.</p>

<p>The primary aim of this set is to be used in conjunction with Toxic Spikes and rack up poison damage on Zapdos' usual switch-ins. This includes Celebi, non-Cleric Blissey, and Swampert. It is similar to Sleep Talk Zapdos but with more reliability; Substitute and Roost used wisely will keep you at high health while blocking status.</p>

<p>Almost all Flying Pokemon immune to Toxic Spikes will fall to Zapdos' STAB Thunderbolt, or in Gliscor's case, Hidden Power Ice. Few Steel Pokemon can reliably switch in (with the exception of Sleep Talking Lava Plume Heatran and Special Defense oriented Jirachi), as Adamant Life Orb Lucario is outsped and 2HKOd provided he attacks, Bronzong and Forretress cannot touch Zapdos, Metagross without Ice Punch can be outstalled, and Empoleon stands very little chance.</p>

<p>This version of Zapdos outspeeds Lucario and can take multiple hits from it. It's the same story with Choice Heracross, as long as you don't switch into Stone Edge. As long as one of Tyranitar's Stone Edge misses, Zapdos can outstall Tyranitar; however, don't rely on the miss. Zapdos does a good job outstalling most walls and outspeeding many Pokemon. Zapdos gets a free Subsitute if it comes in on a locked Earthquake from Choice Band Tyranitar, Garchomp, or Mamoswine. The same goes for Heatran's Choiced Earth Power.</p>

<p>Finally, with it's Pressure ability, Zapdos can handle the "safer" switchins like Cresselia, Cleric Blissey and Sleep Talking Snorlax by PP stalling them into Struggling. Magnezone, of course, remains the safest switch-in.</p>

 

[animenagai]

i think toxic should definitely be an option over HP ice. you can outstall the likes of gliscor even without beating it with HP ice.

 

[Mekkah]

Toxic over Hidden Power Ice equals Sub Garchomp bait. :(

 

[Amelia]

And why do you want to outstall Gliscor when it gets a huge amount of damage from HP Ice?
Not to mention that everything landbased is hit by Toxic Spikes, and everything not land based gets destroyed by Thunderbolt (Apart from Gliscor/Flygon).

The only thing i can say however is that Steelix walls this set completely.

 

[animenagai]

And why do you want to outstall Gliscor when it gets a huge amount of damage from HP Ice?
Not to mention that everything landbased is hit by Toxic Spikes, and everything not land based gets destroyed by Thunderbolt (Apart from Gliscor/Flygon).

The only thing i can say however is that Steelix walls this set completely.

dude not every team has toxic spikes. just because this zapdos is stall like in nature it doesn't need ot be on a stall team. of course i know HP ice demolishes gliscor, i was just saying that even if it didn't have HP ice, it still will be screwed. toxic as an attack on zapdos is darn useful. there aren't much that could counter it. even the most common walls such as cress and celebi may fall to the toxic set - something that the HP ice set cannot do.

 

[Mekkah]

Celebi is easily PP stalled anyway. It can switch in and out of Toxic, but against HP Ice it has to use Recover repeatedly. And that's without Toxic Spikes in play. With Toxic Spikes, Toxic is completely useless against Celebi, while HP Ice will beat it much quicker (after 2-3 turns, it will already have to use Recover every turn).

 

[gorm]

actually without ts celebi can outstall zapdos until it twaves or leech seeds it. because celebi is fucking gang

dude not every team has toxic spikes.

in an interesting parallel, not every team needs to use this zapdos.
the reason toxic spikes is heavily recommended is because zapdos beats almost everything immune.

i dont think a set designed around another strategy/pokemon is at all unheard of. think trick room...


Im not against adding toxic personally, Obi suggested the same thing, although he seemed more interested in beating hippowdon, i guess roar varieties would end up beating you but most of the ones i see are stealth rockers. adding toxic to the set would modify the first sentence to "The primary aim of this set is to be used in conjunction with Toxic Spikes and rack up toxic damage on Zapdos' usual switchins, however Toxicing them on the switch or from behind a sub is also a viable strategy for teams without Toxic Spikes." or something

(the very first sentence seems kind of fluffy ~]~;; )

 

[Mekkah]

Zapdos can freely Substitute away on Celebi unless said Celebi has Psychic, which is often not the case. I suppose a CH HP Ice is welcome though.

 

[gorm]

r_r i guess im just scared of losing pp on the stall; grass knot and recover have (effectively) 16 and 16 pp, just like roost and substitute, not to mention hp ice celebi is pretty popular.

 

[Mekkah]

Oh yeah, HP Ice Celebi would win. I don't think Toxic would be a major help against it though.

 

[Wayff]

Yeah, I think adding Toxic isn't worth it either... Many offensive teams have Roserade too -_- Maybe give this set a mention with Toxic in Other Options?

 

[matty]

Wow, great minds think alike. I had been gone for 5 days but had this set already written up.

On mine, I had Toxic over the Hidden Power since if you are going to use a Hidden Power, that kinda defeats the purpose of Stalling in my mind. Gliscor is also hit by Toxic so....

The other change was that i had a different EV spread. I ran without speed (on yours you try to out speed Lucario, which actually doesn't matter when they usually have Extremespeed) and the rest went into Def., and HP mostly.

 

[Wayff]

Sorry matty, but this set is standard. We've talked about Toxic already too.

 

[gorm]

On mine, I had Toxic over the Hidden Power since if you are going to use a Hidden Power, that kinda defeats the purpose of Stalling in my mind.

?_? hippowdon often runs ice fang eq slack off; heatran runs resttalk plume/fire blast and earthpower/dragon pulse; lax runs resttalk crunch body slam...

i dunno man 2 attacks is not anything like unheard of on stall based pokes.

I don't think Toxic would be a major help against it though.

i never said toxic would help against celebi, im just arguing on a sidenote that celebi is tough as fuck for zapdos to outstall without TS.

im not so stupid that im advocating a moveslot for toxic over hp ice to beat CELEBI. (gliscor is an entirely different matter since toxic fucks him for good). toxic is just cool because it helps zapdos beat other common switchins that woulndt have trouble beating it or at least cause some grief being ppstalled; like moonlight cress, hippowdon, pert, opposing zapdos, whatever.

i just dont like the idea of set specific other options, it's just aesthetically cluttered and confusing, and i think toxic is totally viable.

just a reminder that Obi also runs this set with toxic just in case you think im just a lone maniac defending toxic on this bitch


also i agree with kusaninja about how zapdos getting a free sub from choice ground attacks is kinda silly to mention in a competitive analysis.

 

[Invective]

Zapdos gets a free Subsitute if it comes in on a locked Earthquake from Choice Band Tyranitar, Garchomp, or Mamoswine. The same goes for Heatran's Choiced Earth Power.</p>

The only thing I see with this is that it implies that Zapdos won't get a free sub from other Choice Band Earthquakes. You might want want to generalize this to say all Choice Band/Scarf Earthquakes, or omit the sentence entirely since it should be common knowledge that Zapdos is immune to Ground moves.