Overview
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- Excellent defensive typing, with a plethora of resistances to common attacking types
- Great support movepool, one of the few pokemon in the tier that can set up and clear entry hazards
- Solid special attack and roar to prevent it from being setup bait
- Cannot check fire types like other bulky water types such as vaporeon and swampert can
- No reliable form of recovery, gets worn down fairly quickly with repeated hits
- Weak to common attacking types such as electric, ground, and fighting
Specially Defensive
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name: Specially Defensive
move 1: Stealth Rock
move 2: Defog / Toxic / Protect
move 3: Scald
move 4: Roar
ability: Torrent
item: Leftovers
evs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
nature: Calm
Moves
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- Stealth rock supports emoleons team and it finds many opportunities to set it up thanks to its great defensive typing
- Defog clears all entry hazards to support its teammates
- Toxic puts a timer on setup sweepers and opposing bulky water types
- Protect allows empoleon to scout for choice-locked pokemon and gain another turn of leftovers recovery
- Scald is a decently powerful STAB move that has a nifty 30% chance to burn, crippling physical attackers
- Roar phases out setup sweepers such as calm mind jirachi and racks up entry hazard damage, and is best used without defog
- Ice Beam can be used to hit grass-types such as shaymin and roserade
- Knock Off provides more utility in crippling switch-ins by removing their item
Set Details
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- Maximum Special defense and a calm nature allows empoleon to take special hits and maximize empoleon's bulk.
- Leftovers provide a form of passive recovery.
- 248 HP EVs allow empoleon to take less damage from entry hazards
- A more physically defensive ev spread can be used to take hits from pokemon such as mega absol, darmanitan, mega aerodactyl, and entei.
Usage Tips
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- Pivot into resisted hits from pokemon such as jirachi and hydreigon
- Set up stealth rock when empoleon forces switches, which is somewhat common thanks to its great defensive typing
- Defog should be used before Stealth Rocks if you have the available turns to do so, don't Defog your own rocks unless you absolutely need to clear the hazards on your side.
- Hit water resistant or immune pokemon such as vaporeon with toxic
Team Options
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- Wish / cleric support from pokemon such as florges, aromatisse, and umbreon
- Pokemon that appreciate entry hazard support or removal, such as yanmega, mega aerodactyl, and entei
- pokemon that appreciate empoleon's ability to switch into their weaknesses such as kyurem, rotom-h, and noivern
Other Options
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- Sub + Agility + Petaya berry
- LO Agility 3 Attacks
- An offensive utility set with either defog + 3 attacks or stealth rock + 3 attacks is a solid choice.
- Grass knot for opposing water types
- Flash cannon for an alternate STAB and to hit fairy-types
- Choice Specs
- Physical set with aqua jet, swords dance, etc
Checks & Counters
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**Specially Bulky Pokemon**: Specially bulky Pokemon such as Umbreon and Blissey can either stall out Empoleon with residual damage from Seismic Toss or Foul Play, and they all can get rid of a burn from Scald with Natural Cure or Heal Bell.
**Fighting-types**: Fighting-types such as Machamp and Mienshao threaten Empoleon with their STAB moves, but do not appreciate a burn from Scald. However, Guts Machamp can gain an Attack boost from a burn, making it significantly more of a threat. Mienshao must be wary of Protect, which will cause it to damage itself with High Jump Kick.
**Electric-types**: Electric-types such as Raikou and Mega Ampharos can easily 2HKO Emploeon despite its high Special Defense. Ampharos is notable for resisting Scald, but both do not appreciate a Toxic.
**Ground-types**: While they cannot switch in safely at fear of Scald, Ground-types such as Nidoqueen or Krookodile are a massive pain for Empoleon.
**Grass-types**: Grass-types such as Celebi, Roserade, Amoonguss, or Shaymin resist Scald and most can heal off a Toxic with Natural Cure. Celebi uses Emploeon lacking Roar as setup fodder, Roserade can wear it down with repeated Giga Drains or Leaf Storms, Amoonguss puts Empoleon to sleep with Spore, and Shaymin can hit Empoleon for super effective damage with Earth Power.
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