Jolteon (BW2 Revamp) (QC 2/3)

Adamant Zoroark

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So now that Tornadus-T's got the can, I may as well get this up since I don't have to worry about anything else getting banned for a while.



[Overview]

-Fastest Pokemon in OU; base 130 Speed allows Jolteon to outrun +1 Adamant Dragonite and Gyarados without a Choice Scarf
-BW gave it Volt Switch, allowing it to scout without resorting to Baton Pass
-Blissey is no longer as common as it was in previous generations, only adding to Jolteon's potency
-Being able to outrun many common Rain team members and hit them super effectively is a really big deal, considering how popular Rain is
-Jolteon faces problems with numerous Ground-types blocking Volt Switch, and it's also quite frail and has few exploitable resistances
-Now faces competition from Thundurus-T, who boasts a much higher Special Attack stat and access to moves such as Agility, though Jolteon has many advantages, such as higher instantaneous Speed without a Choice Scarf and lack of a Stealth Rock weakness
-Regardless of its flaws, Jolteon's speed guarantees it can compete with the big boys in OU

[SET]
name: Special Attacker
move 1: Thunderbolt
move 2: Volt Switch
move 3: Signal Beam
move 4: Hidden Power Ice
item: Choice Specs / Life Orb
ability: Volt Absorb
nature: Timid
evs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

-Need power and speed? Choice Specs Jolteon's got you covered.
-Specs Thunderbolt hits like a truck, man; if you don't resist it, you better be a fat pink blob or you're getting hit really hard
-Volt Switch allows it to easily scout for its switch-ins such as Ferrothorn and the pink blobs
-Signal Beam hits Celebi, Tyranitar, and Abomasnow harder than anything else Jolteon can use
-HP Ice hits the likes of Garchomp, Gliscor, and Landorus

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

-Just maximize Special Attack and speed; you're not getting much out of those other stats
-Use Life Orb if you want to avoid being locked into a move
-Shadow Ball has a higher chance to 2HKO Deoxys-D, while Signal Beam doesn't even 2HKO half the time. Be aware this makes you more prone to Tyranitar and Abomasnow, though.
-HP Grass for Mamo/Gastrodon, but makes you weaker to many other threats like Landorus and Garchomp
-Get those Water-types on your team to attract Electric moves, giving Jolteon switch-in opportunities. Good examples are Gyarados and Politoed; The former attracts Electric moves like crazy and the latter supplies Drizzle, allowing Jolteon to use Thunder over Thunderbolt and be even more powerful. Water-types also easily beat the Ground-types that Jolteon has trouble with
-Fighting-types such as Breloom, Lucario, and Terrakion are good teammates to beat Ferrothorn, Blissey, and Chansey
-U-turn users such as Landorus-T and Scizor can also be helpful to form a Volt-Turn core; Landorus-T is also immune to Jolteon's only weakness

[SET]
name: Substitute + Baton Pass
move 1: Substitute
move 2: Baton Pass
move 3: Thunderbolt
move 4: Hidden Power Ice
item: Leftovers / Life Orb
ability: Volt Absorb
nature: Timid
evs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

-Jolteon forces tons of switches, so why not take advantage of this with Substitute?
-Jolteon can use Substitute as a buffer against enemy attacks, making it easier to get past them. Against enemies such as Ferrothorn that Jolteon can't face, Jolteon can pass the Substitute to a teammate that can and make said teammate even more dangerous
-Main disadvantage is having only two moveslots for attacks, but BoltBeam still provides solid coverage that only misses out on Magnezone and Mamoswine

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

-Leftovers improves longevity at the cost of power; Life Orb is the other way around
-Expert Belt is another option to increase power output without the Life Orb recoil, but only boosting damage to super effective attacks kind of sucks
-Electric Plate can boost Thunderbolt's power if you don't want Life Orb's recoil or Expert Belt's reliance on hitting super effectively
-Teammates that can take advantage of Ground-type attacks aimed at Jolteon are ideal. Seriously, use Gyarados with this thing. Gyarados attracts Electric attacks that Jolteon can switch in on, and Jolteon can pass out to Gyarados against Ground-type attacks! It's like a match made in heaven!
-Pokemon that can force out Ferrothorn and Blissey also make good teammates; Lucario in particular resists both Power Whip and Gyro Ball and easily gets past Blissey even without boosts, though other Fighting-types like Terrakion also beat them easily

[Other Options]

-Barren movepool, so not many other options
-Charge Beam/Work Up allow it to boost its Special Attack, but there's at least a million other Pokemon that do the boosting job better
-Don't you dare use Quick Feet

[Checks and Counters]
-Blissey/Chansey switch in unbelievably easily and can just Softboiled/Wish whenever they need to
-Jolteon is not doing much to Ferrothorn
-Mamoswine and Gastrodon switch in easily if Jolteon lacks HP Grass
-Dugtrio revenge kills if Jolteon is locked into its STAB, but needs to look out for non-Choiced Jolteon
-Ground-types such as Garchomp and Gliscor can easily take advantage of a Jolteon locked into its STAB
-Jolteon struggles to damage Kyurem-B
-Doesn't really like taking priority; in particular, Technician Breloom running around everywhere isn't doing Jolteon any favors
-Anything with a Choice Scarf can easily revenge kill due to Jolteon's poor bulk
 

Jirachee

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To me, Signal Beam is better than Shadow Ball on the first set. Signal Beam only has 5 BP less than Shadow Ball, and it still hits Latios and Latias for Super Effective damage. However, Signal Beam also hits Celebi much harder than anything else Jolteon can use, as well as random Grass types like Shaymin, which are very rare but come in handy if you use Hidden Power Grass.

Haven't read the other sets yet so I might edit this post later!
 

Adamant Zoroark

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I understand the benefits of Signal Beam, but I gave the nod to Shadow Ball instead since that's what I've always used on Specs Jolteon.

That being said, I should probably put Signal Beam back on the set but I'll wait for more input before making that decision.
 
What exactly are you hitting with shadow ball.....nothing...? Jellicent is obviously hit with thunderbolt harder, iirc gengar is ohk0d as well. Signal beam does about the same to psychics, and the ability to take out celebi is invaluable, especially if its a rain jolteon. Personally I think it should get the first slash.
 

Adamant Zoroark

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In general, my point with Shadow Ball is that while Signal Beam does more to Celebi, Shadow Ball is still perfectly fine against it. SpD Celebi is avoiding the 2HKO without Rocks, but add on rocks and that chance rises to around 47% (lol), which is pretty respectable when you consider Celebi won't be at maximum health for most of the match. Even if it is at max, it will have to Recover spam or be left for dead if it comes in on Shadow Ball, but Shadow Ball will outstall Recover. I have never been in any scenario where I'd want Signal Beam (except maybe against Abomasnow but who uses that) and have found Shadow Ball to be perfectly fine against Celebi. That, and I found myself using Jolteon on Volt-Turn teams more often than not, so Celebi was never an issue. Only other thing Signal Beam hits is Tyranitar, who is never 2HKOed by it anyway.

That being said, it's really up to QC.

EDIT: This is mostly theorymon, but Signal Beam is also kind of like "Hey, Gengar! Get your ass in here and set up a Substitute on my ass!" That's kind of a situation I'd like to avoid, really, especially when Gengar was used more than Celebi according to the most recent usage stats.
 

shrang

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This is mostly theorymon, but Signal Beam is also kind of like "Hey, Gengar! Get your ass in here and set up a Substitute on my ass!" That's kind of a situation I'd like to avoid, really, especially when Gengar was used more than Celebi according to the most recent usage stats.
This is not the best argument to throw around though, since running Shadow Ball can also bring up some unfavourable situations, such as Tyranitar switching in for free and killing you with Pursuit, while Signal Beam can at least let you dent Tyranitar enough to prevent it from clicking Pursuit with no repurcussions whatsoever. I really don't care about Signal Beam and Shadow Ball, but you can find arguments for both sides. I'd say it deserves a slash at least, but I'll see what the rest of QC says as well.
 

elodin

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Well, I believe Expert Belt deserves an AC mention on the Substitute + Baton Pass set. It can be really useful in situations where you wanna fake a Choice Item and it also kills some stuff that you can't kill with Leftovers without the annoying LO recoil. If you think an AC mention is too much (which I disagree), please at least mention it in OO.

And if you want to know what threats I'm talking about when I say that Expert Belt is useful, I think it's for the guaranteed OHKO on 252 HP Gliscor and for an OHKO on 252 HP Jellicent after Rocks. I'm not sure, you can calculate if you want to. And also to have a nice chance at revenge killing Thundurus-T with Rocks, I forgot to mention it before.
 

Adamant Zoroark

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I ran the calcs and found that it does guarantee a OHKO on Gliscor, but only brings a 44% chance to OHKO 248/0 Jellicent after Stealth Rock (obviously never OHKOes SpD Jellicent). Expert Belt is pretty nice on the Substitute set for the reason of LO recoil (that reliance on hitting super effectively is kind of a bummer though), and I do think it's good enough for AC.
 

Darkmalice

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You need to mention Dugtrio in Counters; if Jolteon's locked into the wrong move with Choice Specs, Dugtrio will kill it. This is less of an issue for Baton Pass Jolteon though.

Also, I have found LO useful on the Specs set instead of Specs with the ability to switch moves. To give an example, I once predicted a Dugtrio switch-in and used Hidden Power Ice to force it down to its Sash, then used Signal Beam as Dugtrio switched out to Abomasnow, KOing it and letting me win the weather war. Using HP Ice again would have meant Abomasnow could switch out (and it would survive the SR switch-in). Mind you, this was on a rain team with Thunder instead of Thunderbolt to compensate for the power loss with LO.

On that topic, Shadow Ball's higher base power means little if you're running Thunder > Thunderbolt, as STAB Thunder outdamages super-effective Shadow Ball, and Signal Beam hits more Electric-type resists super-effectively than Shadow Ball (most notably Celebi and Abomasnow.

You could also mention Electric Plate in AC of the Substitute set if you want a power boost to Thunderbolt without using LO or the downside of having to net super-effective coverage with Expert Belt.
 

alexwolf

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Signal Beam is hands down better than Shadow Ball on the Specs set, this can't be argued. At best Shadow Ball deserves to be slashed second and at worst it can be mentioned in AC. Signal Beal hits harder than any other of your moves Celebi, Tyranitar, and Abomasnow, while Shadow Ball has almost zero benefits except from the minsicule power increase.

The sole fact that Signal Beam murders Celebi, which is a nighmare for rain teams, especially now that Torn-T is gone, is enough to make it better than Shadow Ball. Add to this that Signal Beam has a small chance to 2HKO BandTtars wanting to Pursuit your ass (after SR), and 2HKOes ScarfTar 96% of the time after SR and boom!

Expert Belt and LO should also be mentioned in the AC of the Specs set, as not everyone wants to use a choiced mon, and Jolteon is a decent cleaner especially when it can switch moves.
 

Adamant Zoroark

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I would disagree with Signal Beam being inherently better unless you're on a rain team, but I guess I'm alone here so I'll go ahead and put it as the first slash. I know for sure Shadow Ball has advantages, for example like how I mentioned how a Jolteon locked into Signal Beam is complete Gengar bait (well Jolt locked into HP Grass is too but most people will be using HP Ice anyway). Also, Shadow Ball has a higher chance to 2HKO Deoxys-D. Shadow Ball has an 88% chance to 2HKO; Signal Beam only has a 29% chance to do so. A higher chance to prevent Deoxys-D from getting two layers sounds pretty big to me when considering there's not a large number of Pokemon that can 2HKO Deoxys-D. These will be stressed in the analysis as reasons to use Shadow Ball, while I will stress Celebi, Tyranitar, and Abomasnow as reasons to use Signal Beam.

Also, for Bandtar.... You mean a small chance to 2HKO, right? Because it has like an 8.2% chance to 2HKO CBTar after SR.
 

alexwolf

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Yeah i already said that it is a small chance. And plaese stop saying that a choiced Signal Beam is Gengar bait. A choiced Shadow Ball is set-up bait for many Pokemon too, such as Ttar, Scizor, and Ferrothorn, but so? Any coverage move of a choiced Pokemon will become set-up bait, but this is not the point. The point is to get past the threats that wall your STAB moves and then respond to the Pokemon that will take advantage of your locked move with your teammates.

EDIT: Just saw that i had written OHKO, so yeah i meant 2HKO sry for that.
 

Adamant Zoroark

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Yeah i already said that it is a small chance. And plaese stop saying that a choiced Signal Beam is Gengar bait. A choiced Shadow Ball is set-up bait for many Pokemon too, such as Ttar, Scizor, and Ferrothorn, but so? Any coverage move of a choiced Pokemon will become set-up bait, but this is not the point. The point is to get past the threats that wall your STAB moves and then respond to the Pokemon that will take advantage of your locked move with your teammates.
Well because in your post, you said a small chance to OHKO. Just saying.

Also, none of what you said changes the fact that Signal Beam is Gengar bait, because it is. Of the Pokemon you mentioned, only Tyranitar is relevant to the Signal Beam vs. Shadow Ball discussion. Scizor resists both moves, and Ferrothorn still switches in on Jolteon with ease. Now, can we please stop this discussion? I don't want to shit up this thread. I already put Signal Beam first. Can we just move on or something? God damn.
 
Okay a couple things:

Magnet needs to be slashed with Choice Specs. Don't knock it until you try it. It gives a noticeable boost to your Electric moves and lets you use Hidden Power after you shoot a blank when Garchomp and jerkoffs come in. Have fun shooting blanks against all the Electric immunes. Yes, I understand Specs is generally better, but there are teams that outright lose to Bolt Beaming Jolteon that can switch attacks. Specs Jolt is a lot weaker when you have to play prediction wars with Dugtrio / Scizor U-turn cores and shit.

How the hell do you justify Magnet?!?!?! Run 3 Electric attacks. The coverage moves don't actually accomplish anything at all to be honest. You should be running Volt Switch / Bolt / Thunder / HP Ice. HP Grass beats Mamoswine and Gastroden but is just worse otherwise. If you run HP Grass, you definitely should have Shadow Ball somewhere. Dry Baton Pass is also worth a slash as well.

The idea is pretty simple.. Jolteon wants to be used on rain to abuse Specs Thunder. You thought T-T Hurricane was bad? Jolteon is the same beast, with identical SpA and higher speed. Thunderbolt is useful for outside of Rain. Jolteon's coverage moves suck anyway, so you don't lose a damn thing by running 3 electric attacks. It should look like this

[SET]
name: Special Attacker
move 1: Volt Switch
move 2: Thunder
move 3: Hidden Power Ice / Hidden Power Grass
move 4: Thunderbolt / Shadow Ball
item: Choice Specs / Magnet
ability: Volt Absorb
nature: Timid
evs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

Where is this set please?!?!

[SET]
name: Booster
move 1: Work Up / Charge Beam
move 2: Thunderbolt
move 3: Volt Switch / Shadow Ball
move 4: Hidden Power Ice / Hidden Power Grass
item: Life Orb / Leftovers
ability: Volt Absorb
nature: Timid
evs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

It is really easy to grab a Work Up and sweep people. This set not existing is unacceptable.

The sole fact that Signal Beam murders Celebi, which is a nighmare for rain teams, especially now that Torn-T is gone, is enough to make it better than Shadow Ball. Add to this that Signal Beam has a small chance to 2HKO BandTtars wanting to Pursuit your ass (after SR), and 2HKOes ScarfTar 96% of the time after SR and boom!
Jolteon doesn't fear Tyranitar like that. Specs Thunderbolt 2HKOs ScarfTar after SR and outdamages Signal Beam anyway.
 

Adamant Zoroark

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I'm sorry, but... Work Up Jolteon is a joke. Not only is it decidedly difficult to set up (what resistances do you have? uhh... Flying, Steel, and Electric......? lol), it's completely outclassed. Keldeo is a better Special set-up sweeper, Latias is a better Special set-up sweeper, Celebi is better, Reuniclus is better, Jirachi is better, Thundurus-T is better.... The list goes on. The booster set is OO at best.
 
Uh... no? Jolteon has a higher speed tier.. cut it out.

Keldeo is revenged by Tornadus, Starmie, and speed ties Infernape, Terrakion, and other Keldeo. Jolteon beats all of the above.

Celebi doesn't have Jolteon's coverage and speed, and is revenged by even more shit.

Latias is pursuit bait, good luck pursuiting Work Up Jolteon

Reuniclus can't boost it's special attack, or can't boost it's speed. Guess what, it needs to do one because it is either getting revenged or not strong enough.

Thundurus-T is slower than non-Scarf Garchomp. Brother, that is bad!

You have ZERO justification for removing boosting Jolteon. We bitched about Tornadus-T sweeping teams, yet Jolteon has identical special attack, higher speed, AND a way to boost Special attack.. What the fuck?!?!

Yes, let's remove a sweeping set for a Pokemon with 125 Base Speed, 110 Base Special Attack, Bolt Beam, a Boosting move, and immunity to Thunder Wave.. what the hell is going these days?
 

Adamant Zoroark

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Uh... no? Jolteon has a higher speed tier.. cut it out.

Keldeo is revenged by Tornadus, Starmie, and speed ties Infernape, Terrakion, and other Keldeo. Jolteon beats all of the above.

Celebi doesn't have Jolteon's coverage and speed, and is revenged by even more shit.

Latias is pursuit bait, good luck pursuiting Work Up Jolteon

Reuniclus can't boost it's special attack, or can't boost it's speed. Guess what, it needs to do one because it is either getting revenged or not strong enough.

Thundurus-T is slower than non-Scarf Garchomp. Brother, that is bad!

You have ZERO justification for removing boosting Jolteon. We bitched about Tornadus-T sweeping teams, yet Jolteon has identical special attack, higher speed, AND a way to boost Special attack.. What the fuck?!?!
Keldeo can actually beat Blissey and Chansey. Really big deal.

Latias actually has bulk. Also, it's not like Jolteon fares any better against Tyranitar.

Reuniclus also actually has bulk.

Thundurus-T can boost with Agility (beat offense) or Nasty Plot (beat stall). Both are better boosting moves than Work Up, and in the case of Agility, Thundurus-T can run a Modest Nature and have super-high Special Attack thanks to that base 145 Special Attack. Plus, Thundurus-T has this cool move called Focus Blast that prevents Mamoswine from switching in with ease. This is fucking huge.

My point stands: Jolteon just doesn't have enough resistances or bulk to effectively use a boosting set. When 10 times out of 10 I'd rather use a different booster, that tells me that it does not deserve a set.
 
Get the hell outta here are you kidding me?

Maybe YOU don't prefer to use it, but it is potent enough for the community to warrant its own set. You are doing a disservice to people using the analysis for a reference because I can tell you for sure a lot of teams out there are weak to boosting Jolteon. It is not always about "oh, well I prefer sweepers A and B" vs. the pokemon in question. Jolteon doesn't have any immediate competition for that set other than Raikou, who is worse for obvious reasons.
 

Adamant Zoroark

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........ *facepalm*

What potency? I have never seen it been used successfully, nor used it successfully myself. Also, if a team is weak to boosting Jolteon, I guarantee you they're weak to its other sets too. In fact, let's talk about it relative to its other sets.

I'd rather use one of Jolteon's two sets that are actually on this analysis, 10 times out of 10. If I wanted a booster, I'd use something that actually has the resistances or bulk to set up. End of discussion.
 
Choice Specs can't switch attacks. Baton Pass you are passing a frail Sub.
what you SHOULD do is consider passing the damn Work Up if you think it is such a bad set, but you didn't even mention it.

The question and issue I have is not in which one of Jolteon's sets the average player would prefer, it is which sets are competitively viable. A pokemon with 125 Speed and 110 Special Attack, a way to boost its Special Attack, Bolt Beam, and immunity to Thunder Wave is competitive enough to use in the metagame. There just aren't any if ands or buts about it. I really don't care which one you would prefer.

Let the record show, I have a serious problem with people trimming sets due to preference and not actual viability.
 

alexwolf

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Jolteon doesn't fear Tyranitar like that. Specs Thunderbolt 2HKOs ScarfTar after SR and outdamages Signal Beam anyway.
Tbolt has a 137.5 BP and Signal has a 150 BP againt Tyranitar. And Tbolt 2HKOes doesn't always 2HKO ScarfTar, it has roughly a 50% chance after SR. Signal Beam's main target is Celebi, hitting Tyranitar and Abomasnow harder that anything else is just an added bonus.
 

Adamant Zoroark

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Let the record show, I have a serious problem with people trimming sets due to preference and not actual viability.
I'm not trimming any sets from the analysis due to preference. I'm cutting Work Up Jolteon from the analysis because there's pretty much zero reasons to use it over Jolteon's other sets, and in many cases, other set-up sweepers, who are often either bulkier or more powerful (or both!). And, as I said multiple fucking times, the niche of having higher Speed means little when you can't set up worth a damn due to your low bulk and few resistances.

My decision is final. I am not putting Boosting Jolteon in this analysis, and I'm certain QC will agree with this decision when considering they decided that Swords Dance Weavile is not OU worthy in Weavile's currently in progress revamp for similar reasons I'm refusing to add in Work Up Jolteon. You simply cannot, cannot, cannot deny the fact that Work Up Jolteon is hard to set up due to its frailty and few resistances (three resistances, one of which is very rare and one of which is irrelevant outside of Bullet Punch which still does a lot to Jolteon anyway).
 

jc104

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There's definitely room for a LO attacker set, and bearing in mind Jolteon's lack of options, a boosting move (Work Up or Charge Beam) is not a terrible idea. Mainly, you just have a hard hitter that can switch moves, but when the time is right you might be able to set up and sweep. I would rather not have a whole set dedicated to work up, however.
 

Adamant Zoroark

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From my experience, all-out attacking Life Orb Jolteon is pretty good. I don't feel that a whole separate set is necessary, though, so slashing Life Orb on the Specs set and renaming it to "Special Attacker" would probably be a better idea since the two sets play similarly enough. My experience with Work Up, though, tells me it probably isn't slash-worthy on said set, though. I know having a boosting move can be helpful, but at the moment I'm leaning towards AC'ing it based on my experience with it.
 

Chou Toshio

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I think the sense to use Shadow Ball on Jolteon is a relic from DPPt, where you would have needed it to hurt Rotom-A.

Anyway, I'm not a C&C Mod anymore, but if I were, I'd have to consider editing half the posts between the OP and RaikouLove. Try to keep away from the personal attacks guys... >__> This isn't a discussion forum. Keep it civil and on-task.
 

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