Rampardos


Type: Rock
Abilities: Mold Breaker, DW Encourage​

Stats: 97, 165, 60, 65, 50, 58​

New moves are bolded​

Level up Moveset
Headbut, Leer, focus energy, pursuit, take down, scary face, assurance, little by little, endeavor, Ancientpower, zen headbutt, screech, Head Smash

TMs learnable
Roar, Toxic, Hidden Power, Sunny Day, Ice beam, Blizzard, Hyper Beam, Protect, Rain Dance, Frustration, Knock Down, thunderbolt, thunder, Earthquake, Return, Dig, Brick Break, Double team, Flamethrower, sandstorm, Fire Blast, Rock Tomb, Facade, Rest, Attract, Thief, Sing a round, Focus Blast, fling, incinerate, Payback, Giga impact, Rock Polish, Stone edge, Swords Dance, Level Ground, Rock Slide, Dragon Tail, swagger, substitute, rock smash, cut, surf, strength

Egg Moves
crunch, thrash, double edge, leer, slam, stomp, whirlwind, hammer arm, curse, iron tail, iron head

New Moves​
little by little: Normal, physical, 70, 100, 20. Effect: deals damage without reguarding stat changes
Knock Down: Rock, physical, 50, 100, 15. Effect: removes ground immunity from levitating opponents
sing a round: Normal, special, 60, 100, 15. Effect: raises power if you have more pokemon with the same move
incinerate: fire, special, 30, 100, 15. Effect: Destroys opponents held berry
Level Ground: ground, physical, 60, 100, 20. Effect: lowers opponent's speed
Dragon Tail: Dragon, physical, 60, 90, 10. Effect: may cause opponent to switch​


Moves powered by Encourage

Headbutt
Acientpower
Zen Headbutt
Ice Beam
Blizzard
Thunderbolt
Thunder
Flamethrower
Fire Blast
Focus Blast
Rock Slide
Rock Smash
Crunch
Stomp
Iron Tail
Iron Head




Edit: looks like most of this is ending up going down the drain...>.> Apparently said by a few below encourage only powers up a move if there is a secondary effect to remove. If not then it won't work. Please take note of that if you didn't know already.

Overview: Many people hoped/begged/pleaded that Rampardos get Rock Head from dream world. Though it didn't get it Rampardos got the next best thing, Encourage. Though that doesn't seem to change much it does make a few moves more powerful.​


Example Movesets​




Rock Polish go!​

Item: Focus Sash/Liechi/L.Orb/Leftovers/M.Band​

Evs: 252 speed, 252 attack​

Nature: Adamant, Jolly​

Ability: Mold Breaker/Encourage​

Moves: Head Smash/Stone Edge/Rock Slide, EQ, Rock Polish, Filler​


Notes: Say hello to the standard Rock Polish Rampardos. Lead versions use Focus sash however the item you hold depends on your style of play. The Rock Slide has no recoil and will at least 2hko many pokes (especially with encourage) though head smash has a bit more omph​



C.Rampardos​

Item:Choice Scarf/Choice Band​

Evs: 252 Speed, 252 attack​

Nature: Jolly/Adamant​

Ability: Mold Breaker/Encourage​

Moves: Stone Edge/Head smash/Rock Slide, EQ, pursuit, Filler​


Notes: the no set up pardos. Just send it out and start swinging. Again, it's your call whether or not you want to go safe with Stone Edge or go all in with Head smash. Pursuit will net you some nice kills.​
 
God I forgot how powerfull this thing is, however since it didn't get rock head it will still recieve a astonishing amount of recoil from head smash, stone edge is unreliabledue to its accuracy.

I don't see this poke getting much more usage, esspecially considering how the amount of powerfull sweepers introduced this gen is amazing and are just going to outclass rampardos. Still you cannot deny this pokes power.
 
It doesn't get boosted, Recoil doesn't count as a secondary effect.
You can use Stone Edge though to have the same effective BP as Head Smash (and it has the same accuracy as Head Smash)...
 

UltiMario

Out of Obscurity
is a Pokemon Researcher
I don't believe it boosts Head Smash, but it DOES boost Rock Slide and Fire Punch to respectable levels. Encourage Fire Punch could certainly put a dent in Skarm.
 

breh

強いだね
Uh... why use Stone Edge when you have encourage Rock Slide? I don't think Encourage boosts Stone Edge, but feel free to prove me wrong. In any case, don't use Head Smash, as it's both inaccurate and weaker than the other moves.

Jolly should be the main nature, as it helps you outspeed a lot more scarfed pokemon; if you're playing in UU, it outspeeds Scarf Rotom (I think) after a Rock Polish (base 91). Unfortunately though you can't outspeed 100+ Scarfers in OU.. In any case, Rampardos already has shittons of attack anyway.

In a similar manner, LO should be the main option on the RP set; Rampardos doesn't really need a Focus Sash IMO; it should be coming in on walls, not sweepers that can actually damage it.

Otherwise, please fix up some of the spellng errors here (not to mention the nigh unreadable format). For example, one of the egg moves is listed as "Trash". Huh. Apparently it must be that bad of a move..
 
I lol'd and fixing fixing

Edit: aright, now all the stuff on head smash is gone since stone edge is...basically the same thing except with 5 less accuracy but no recoil. I'll double check on spelling but I think I got them all

meh...suddenly massive fails...thousands of them

whatever still be in awe of rampardos !!!
 
I thought that Encourage powered up all attacks, in exchange for removing secondary effects from all moves.
That's the description that I see on most sites, but Smogon's in-depth analysis proves me wrong. Hopefully they change the description when it's translated to match what it actually does.

I initially saw a place for Rampardos w/Mold Breaker in regular play after Sturdy's change was announced, but most Pokemon with Sturdy resist rock or are neutral to it, and they have high defense.
Maybe some other Pokemon could fit that role (Ononokusu?)

Oh yeah, and both of those sets you have up there are the same, only replacing one move.
I don't know, but it looks like nothing new was added to those sets at all. Encourage wouldn't even activate on most of those moves.
 
One thing that you should probably also have in the original post is the list of moves Rampardos has that are effected by encourage

Headbutt
Acientpower
Zen Headbutt
Ice Beam
Blizzard
Thunderbolt
Thunder
Flamethrower
Fire Blast
Focus Blast
Rock Slide
Rock Smash
Crunch
Stomp
Iron Tail
Iron Head


Now out of that list, we have a select few moves that Rampardos can actually use

Zen Headbutt
Rock Slide
Crunch
Iron Head


The biggest advantage an Encourage Rampardos has is a slightly more powerful and more accurate STAB attack in the form of Rock Slide. Beyond that, we have a few more powerful filler attacks and not much else. It's a shame Head Smash doesn't have a random secondary effect like Flare Blitz, otherwise, Rampardos might amount to a little more. Personally, I would rather stick to Mold Breaker so I can still Earthquake Levitating Pokemon and use 4th Gen tutor moves (Superpower and Fire Punch anyone?).
 
Not sure why you're sad about this. Encourage (now apparently called brute force according to bulbapedia) also removes life orb damage, boosting rock polish sets by quite a bit.

Rampardos @ Life Orb
Adamant, Encourage
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
~ Rock Polish
~ Rock Slide/Head Smash
~ Earthquake/Level Ground
~ Zen Headbutt/EQ/Head Smash

This would put Rampardos at an attack stat of 471 in addition to Life Orb and Encourage boosting his moves by 69%. Adamant is because it's Rampardos and there's no reason to use Rampardos if you aren't going to maximize its attack, and Zen Headbutt can kill any mach punch users on the switch-in trying to come in on a rock attack (Level Ground is a slightly weaker replacement for Earthquake that does not take Life Orb damage, but I wouldn't recommend dropping any attack power). This thing does extremely high damage with or without Head Smash, and without it it can continue to be a great asset to the team by forcing switches or breaking walls. Running both is a solid choice too, but it reduces your coverage and takes away most of your reason to run encourage in the first place.

It's usable as a sweeper once you take down their physical walls, but its real niche that separates it from the likes of Doryuuzu is as a pseudo-choice bander after the opponent knows you have Rock Polish and thinks you'll begin setting up. Using this strategy it ends up doing far more damage than it would simply failing to set up every time it switches in, and it can do excellent damage to any physical walls if you predict right. I recommend head smash if you have effective wish support such as blissey and wish to focus on the second strategy I listed, but keep in mind this utterly destroys Rampardos's health since it would be the only attack to not negate life orb.

In short, the power of this set isn't in rock polish, it's in letting your opponent know you have it while continuing to act as an extremely high damage choice bander.
 
Just to clear. Things up you can't have Brute Force(encourage) and fire punch soooo....how much would his fire blast do to common steels?
 

alphatron

Volt turn in every tier! I'm in despair!
Hammer Arm and Rock Polish seems ridiculously counter productive. While it's a real shame brick break doesn't recieve encourage boosts (which is should...considering it has a positive secondary effect), is there anything that needs to be taken out in one hit with hammer arm that brick break can't deal with?

Rampardos benefits off of encourage slightly more than tauros does. He actually gets crunch.

Why not go the trick room route? Then you can run swords dance over rock polish and proceed with the scheduled executions.
 
Hammer Arm and Rock Polish seems ridiculously counter productive. While it's a real shame brick break doesn't recieve encourage boosts (which is should...considering it has a positive secondary effect), is there anything that needs to be taken out in one hit with hammer arm that brick break can't deal with?

Rampardos benefits off of encourage slightly more than tauros does. He actually gets crunch.

Why not go the trick room route? Then you can run swords dance over rock polish and proceed with the scheduled executions.
Again, I have made a terrible mistake. I was under the impression hammer arm had a chance to reduce the enemy's speed, not a reduction of the user's. That's just shameful.
 
He's a wanker for correcting your terrible spelling?

Bitch, please.

Rasmpardos is slow, fragile and weak to most priority moves (Aqua Jet, Mach Punch, Bullet Punch). It's not going to achieve much even with Encourage making it even more powerful.
 
Hey, dont be a fukken wanker.
Sorry. I wasn't aware people who spoke British-language spelled "fuck" "fukk" :/

ungulateman, Rampy DOES get Rock Polish. It's also only weak to 4n% of the priority in the game. (bullet punch, vwave, mach punch, aqua jet, but not espeed, qa, sucker punch, fake out, ice shard).

Much better, n'est pas?

Expanding on last point, Encourage<Mold Breaker because Mold Breaker provides coverage, which is more important in Rampy's case than power. Since it has enough of that.

Hopefully lots of fighting-priority users will jump a tier to beat Doryuuzu, and Rampy can occasionally sweep in UU?
 

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