DPP Jirachi (Full Revamp)

[Colonel M]

I've used that set too, Colonel M, except I used Expert Belt and more specialized EVs. Here's the set I used:

Jirachi @ Expert Belt
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 76 HP / 180 Atk / 216 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
- U-turn
- Iron Head
- Fire Punch
- Wish / Ice Punch / ThunderPunch

This explains the EVs: (what I posted in my RMT)

If you're using U-Turn to counter Magnezone, you can take it on with a combination of Fire Punch, paralysis (Body Slam / Thunder Wave) and Iron Head (if you need to flinch hax a little bit). I can agree on Wish at least... and possibly Ice Punch. Though in the case of Ice Punch I'd sooner use Zen Headbutt to do some damage to Rotom-A.

 

[cim]

That's fine, but Psychic + Thunderbolt / Grass Knot is a better "on average" setup than Flash Cannon + Hidden Power Ground.

At the very least it should be the first option rather than the second one.

No it actually isn't. In more battles you'll want Flash Cannon / HP Ground, it's not really "more specialized" than the other; you have just about as many things that can take them on.

I honestly didn't buy Flash Cannon / HP Ground myself until I tried it for a few weeks alternating with Psychic / Thunderbolt...

 

[link6491]

I am just curious: could Body Slam be worked into the Anti-Lead set? Stunning sweeper leads, and then flinching with Iron Head can be pretty nasty.

Sorry for not adding much, but Body Slam on Jirachi is a great way to spread some paralysis support in early game.

 

[TeaBag]

Anyhow, try it before you knock it. Seriously, it works just as well if not better than Psychic / Thunderbolt. It allows Jirachi to not instantly lose to Tyranitar, Mamoswine, Heatran, and Magnezone, plus it still beats most anything else that comes in on it. I don't know what reason you object to it for, but I'd encourage you to read everything SDS and I have written on the topic.

Mamo is 2HKO'd by Psychic without a Calm Mind so it always loses; Magnezone is setup fodder. :\

Flash Cannon, like RL said, might be better to hit Latias, but in reality you should be switching out of Latias because not only can she Calm Mind up with you, but boasts Recover / Roost.

 

[cim]

Well the point isn't that Mamoswine.

Specs Magnezone is not set up fodder. We've adressed both of these points at least 5 times already.

 

[TeaBag]

Specs Magnezone is not set up fodder. We've adressed both of these points at least 5 times already.

| Magnezone | Item | Choice Scarf | 47.5 |
| Magnezone | Item | Leftovers | 37.4 |
| Magnezone | Item | Other (2) | < 9.9 |

I purposed stated "Magnezone" as opposed to "Specs Magnezone" because it's used less than 10% of the time.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Mamo is 2HKO'd by Psychic without a Calm Mind so it always loses; Magnezone is setup fodder. :\

Flash Cannon, like RL said, might be better to hit Latias, but in reality you should be switching out of Latias because not only can she Calm Mind up with you, but boasts Recover / Roost.

If you do not have Substitute you *will* lose to Jirachi in a CM war because of the inevitable Critical Hit.

163.46% - 192.86% - +6 CH Flash Cannon to 252/0 Latias.

I crit, you lose. You crit, you break the sub. I win either way.

 

[cim]

By the way to preempt people that is how CM Jirachi beats Suicune; it needs a crit. That's one of the million reasons Sub is great.

Flash Cannon / Thunderbolt is worth consideration; the slashes are currently set up so you can pick it so I'll make SDS add something to it about that.

I'm going to quote some old stuff here for emphasis.

EDIT: What I'm saying here is that this Jirachi beats the most common counters. If you look down the counters section, you see the same stuff come up: Tyranitar, Metagross, Heatran, Celebi, and most importantly Magnezone. The Jirachi listed puts the beatdown on all of them. The counters to the Flash Cannon/HP Ground set are so different from the counters to every single other set that it's simply the best way to use Jirachi right now.

I'd particularly like to emphasize this one.

Again, let me emphasize this. The Psychic, Thunderbolt CMer is still a slash and the reasons for using it over the "standard" set are emphasized in the set comments. One is currently slightly better than the other. I'm sure people using Smogon's dexes will be smart enough to figure out to switch if they have a team that works well with Psychic / Thunderbolt or whatever.

 

[RaikouLover]

Flash Cannon / Thunderbolt IMO is probably the way to go because it is a reasonable compromise and looks good on paper (I'm just speculating because I haven't tried it). If you look at OU, Electivire, Jolteon, Magnezone, and Swampert are the only things that it does not hit neutral. Furthermore, it hits Skarmory and Suicune super effectively (your two phazers!) and Mamoswine and Tyranitar (two of your three counters!) super effectively. Flash Cannon + HP Ground is kinda mediocre IMO and won't be that great in the long run (hidden powers suck) and Psychic / Thunderbolt would be great pre-Latias, but doesn't look as good now. Since Latias is stuck using NVE Dragon Pulse, you will beat her with Flash Cannon's neutral damage and defense drops.

 

[Mrobinson587]

I want to mention drain punch as an option on any set that runs some Attack EV's with iron head and body slam. I've tried it and it works pretty dang good. You can drain Magnezones health down to low levels often winning the battle with it head on. Drain punch does good things to heatran tyranitar etc. Iron Head is stiill a better option to attack blissey unless you are runnning extremely low on health.
Body Slam
Iron Head
Drain Punch
Zen Headbutt ( for Rotom)/ Filler

 

[cim]

I'm actually considering dropping Psychic entirely and just running Flash Cannon in 3 and Thunderbolt / HP Ground in 4 but we already pissed off enough people with Jirachi's new standard that I don't wanna take it out as a slash.

Anyway Flash Cannon / THunderbolt is just as good as Flash Cannon / HP Ground in some quick tests, though Heatran still makes one sadface you can still come in later and beat it. Magnezone is a bitch but "whatever".

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

As a result of the previous revelations, I'm going to edit the analysis here.

 

[RaikouLover]

Don't drop Psychic at all. It still needs to be a slash. It should look like this:

Flash Cannon / Psychic
Thunderbolt / HP Ground

Realistically, any combination of these can work. But Thunderbolt is the best "secondary" attack, and Psychic IMO is only secondary because of the introduction of Latias. Remeber it IS your most powerful attack. Also, Mamoswine isn't "point" for Flash Cannon since Psychic 2HKOs it anyway and Jirachi is faster. I would just say the benefits of each of the four combinations, because you can even run Psychic / HP Ground and be okay as well.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Psychic is almost completely inferior, as of the few Pokemon it beats, Swampert and maybe Electivire (lol) are the only ones that run physical attacks that can beat CM Jirachi. There really is no reason to use Psychic on CM Jirachi any more. It's mentioned in Set Comments, and there it shall stay.

 

[diamondfan1910]

Swampert's annoying but the ability to hit T-tar is too good to pass up. I've been using Flash Cannon/Thunderbolt and it's been working really well, although this is on Suspect. I've been running 220 Speed though, which is enough to get to 320 to beat Modest Latios and Adamant Salamence, including non-Naive Mixmence (although barely any aren't Naive now thanks to Panamaxis' RMT). But I've found most Latios tend to be Timid anyway and even if they do outspeed they're really easy to set up against, so I plan to drop the speed.

 

[cim]

I don't care that much but I'd say keep Psychic as a slash, SDS, if only because it's common and still okay...

 

[RaikouLover]

Originally Posted by Seven Deadly Sins
Psychic is almost completely inferior, as of the few Pokemon it beats, Swampert and maybe Electivire (lol) are the only ones that run physical attacks that can beat CM Jirachi. There really is no reason to use Psychic on CM Jirachi any more. It's mentioned in Set Comments, and there it shall stay.

No. Just, no. Psychic actually has better neutral type coverage than Flash Cannon, and is more powerful. Never was it "just for Swampert or Electivire," it was for that thing called STAB

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

And uh... Flash Cannon also gives STAB but without being filleted by a lot of other things? Flash Cannon is 10 BP lower, but a LOT better in the sense that it gives far better neutral coverage with Thunderbolt (thanks for suggesting it, by the way).

EDIT: Here's the thing. While Psychic/Thunderbolt DOES have better neutral coverage, it misses a LOT of stuff that is really important. Celebi, Tyranitar, Latias just to name a few. These three are so HUGE that Swampert and Electivire (which are the only things that Psychic hits that Flash Cannon misses AND you don't beat anyway due to their dependence on special attacks) are meaningless.

 

[darkie]

It is still a reliable option, though, and I really don't see anything wrong with RaikouLover's

Flash Cannon / Psychic
Thunderbolt / HP Ground

move placement.

 

[Syberia]

Swampert is really the only thing that "matters," since Electivire is so weak defensively anyways, and just sucks in general.

Neither move can beat the standard Blissey without a Special Defense drop, and even then there's a good chance it can be stalled out by Wish/Protect, so that's not relevant in terms of Psychic's increased power.

Either STAB attack can work, IMO. Putting Flash Cannon first and Psychic second might be the best way to do things.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

Infernape, Swampert, Lucario, Zapdos, Machamp, Breloom, Kingdra, Rotom, Magnezone, Jolteon, Electivire, Heracross

These are the OU pokemon that running Flash Cannon/Tbolt makes a fuckton of a lot harder to beat. Some can be kind of fixed with hp ground (infernape, luke, vire, zone, jolt). Some clearly have a problem beating you anyway (zapdos needs roar, zone and jolt probably need specs, loom needs superpower or sky uppercut and will probably lose anyway). But i really think people are underestimating the difference in super effective coverage between a psychic move and a steel move. you basically give all those free kills (outside swampert) up for the ability to beat tyranitar (and one or two other pokemon that seem like running a specialized set for would be better anyway)? hardly seems worth it when you add in the fact that you're losing 10 base power which people are also underestimating the importance of

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

we need to stop thinking that jirachi is always going to be "set up"

in today's metagame i'd say you're hardpressed to even get 2 cms under your belt with jirachi and if you have a habit of subbing the switch instead of cm'ing it, chances are you're going to be hitting shit with an unboosted special attack.

after looking at the pretty sweet coverage it gets i'd personally be for running

sub
cm
psychic
signal beam/tbolt

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I'll slash it.

Jabba, thank you for finally posting in here. As I said, Pokemon that cannot threaten you are out of the picture, as are Pokemon that need freaky specialized sets. Straight up, that means Special Lucario, Non-PHazing Zapdos, non-Specs Zone and Jolt, Special Electivire, Rotom, Breloom. The result is that you have the following:

Infernape
Swampert
Lucario
Machamp
Kingdra
Heracross

Infernape is frail and can be hit before it forces you out, and if you don't have a way to beat it you're boned regardless.

Machamp is slow and can be beaten by other members of your team.

I talked Lucario over with Darkie and as long as it doesn't have a boost it will lose to you unless you start at 75% or less.

Kingdra deals 37.38% - 44.06% with Adamant Life Orb Waterfall, while you deal 39.86% - 47.08% with +1 Thunderbolt and can beat it if you Sub on the switch and CM as it breaks your sub. If it DDs as you CM, then you can still beat it.

Heracross takes 48.84% - 57.81% from +1 Flash Cannon before Close Combat (73.09% - 86.71% after). If it uses Megahorn it can miss, and Close Combat lowers defense. Both deal 51.98% - 61.14% You can dent Scarf sets and CB sets if you wish, or simply get the hell out of dodge.

All of these Pokemon pose threats to Jirachi, but none have reliable recovery, meaning their lifespan is limited.

All in all, the two are kinda equal. Latias necessitates the use of Flash Cannon, though, which kinda hurts Psychic's viability as main STAB. I'll slash Psychic in, as it really is viable.

I'll change it to

CM
Sub
Flash Cannon / Psychic
Thunderbolt / Signal Beam

Psychic/Signal Beam does give pretty cool coverage, but Flash Cannon / Thunderbolt is still better for hitting Steel-types, especially Heatran and Skarmory.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

The problem is they all dent the fuck out of you, which really makes a subcm sweep harder. With Psychic > Flash Cannon there are far less pokemon that can put a dent in you before you kill them, and I think that's the most important thing to take into consideration for a sweeper.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Or they, say... hit your sub as you dent them and you switch out with only 12.5% of your life down? Like the point of Substitute is? I'm saying you can beat them if you want to take damage (and if the Pokemon is that important to kill you might want to do just that) or you can just switch out with minimal losses and an effective win due to Lefties + Substitute meaning that instead of "denting the fuck" out of you they just hit a sub.

If any of the aforementioned Pokemon are switching into you, you WILL have a substitute and possibly a Calm Mind. From there, you get to dent them and decide if you either want to fight or flee. Calm Mind Jirachi depends on having a Substitute up to protect it and either let it set up or dent the opponent and get the hell out of dodge. If any of these Pokemon come in on you when you don't have a Substitute up, you are obviously doing something very wrong (or you killed one of their Pokemon in which case you are still in the winning end of things and should not mind getting the hell out of there).