But remember that Protect does not work well in consecutive turns so there will be turns where your opponent can easily beat Salazzle, unless you switch her out then switch her in again when there are not threats on the field or use fake out and spam protect again. And you're right: in the Doubles/VGC formats everything that moves runs protect, I think it is the most overused move in those formats.
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Pokémon Salazzle
- Thread starter Albacore
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Yes, I also thought it was about singles but then I saw "protect" in the moveset :v
In the Toxapex thread, lots of people said that Salazzle should've gotten Merciless and Toxapex should've gotten Corrosion
That's a huge laugh from Gamefreak.
I mean salazzle would be a mad good pokemon if it could have merciless as a secondary ability. Toxapex would instantly be sent to Uber if it could run either corrosion,merciless or regenerator. Imagin a pokemon that could toxic stall the entire meta or endless stall/defensive pivot or be a late game stabed venoshock merciless sweeper. On top of that depending on the defensive spread bar supper effective stabs , certain OU teams wouldn't be able to handle it. *Shudders*
Edit: I would like to add limber is actually a pretty good ability on toxa if it wasn't for regenerator being so much better.
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Agreed. Corrosion on a defensive mon would be completely broken.
Should be fun in hackmons.
Salazzle definitely has enough potential to get into OU in my opinion, scoring RU at the very least. Its Special Attack and Speed is good for revenge killing and Choice Specs. Its ability, Corrosion, allows it to set up Toxic against Steel-types and Poison-types. (although I don't prefer Corrosion and Toxic sets because of Salazzle's defense stats) Unfortunately, its defensive stats make for quite a frail Pokemon, which means more Earthquake and Psyshock for Pokemon like Landorus-T, Alakazam and other Ground and Psychic type pokemon. (68/60/60) Salazzle could pull of a Choice Specs or maybe Toxic-Venoshock. Salazzle is good for sweeping bulky Fairy types like Togekiss, Clefable and Sylveon. However, Stealth Rock and Spikes could pose as a problem for Salazzle. This pokemon is powerful, but work needs to be done to remove Ground-types from field to allow Salazzle to live up to its full sweeping potential. Life Orb or Choice Specs Salazzle could be a promising set for OU. Let's hope that with the hopeful addition of a move tutor in the next game, Salazzle will be able to learn more Grass-types or Ice-types moves to counter powerful Ground-types and Rock-types. Hopefully, it will get a more powerful Grass-type move like Giga Drain. Even without the hopeful Giga Drain, Hidden Power Grass still deals enough damage to faint less bulky Ground-types and Water-types. Salazzle is OU material. It just needs to live up to the potential it was given.
Curious to know what you EV spread is for this set up? Ive tried it out and I enjoy it so far. Now I just need to get an Oranguru and abuse Instruct with it. I was wondering what you thought about Focus Sash instead of Air Balloon?
Honestly, I'm not too in love with this pokemon. It's certainly cool, and its ability, and it does have a nice little support movepool, but it's just too frail. Against pure stall/defensive teams that are hella passive, then, sure being able to toxic everything behind a sub and encore and disable and all that is great, but against offensive teams, then what? You taunt something, you get hit, you die. You Nasty Plot, you get hit, you die. As a pure life orb sweeper, there are better mons to do the job. Weavile is faster, hits harder, and has more coverage options, and is even bulkier, for what it's worth.
The best use might be as a life orb sweeper that has that utility of being able to toxic anything. Toxic/Venoshock is a nice combo. Or for a nasty plot set, going with encore as a way of being like anti-setup on things you outspeed while also setting up yourself. Something like NP/Encore/Sludge Bomb/Fireblast. Really, it's a bit of a shame. Barring the 4x weakness to ground, Poison/Fire is a solid solid defensive typing, but even with those defenses, you're hardly going to be taking even resisted hits very well. Corrosion is a good ability, but just not suited for this pokemon, beyond just being a nice little tool in your kit.
In lower tiers, it should do pretty well, I imagine, but even then not amazing power and those awful defenses will hold it back
The best use might be as a life orb sweeper that has that utility of being able to toxic anything. Toxic/Venoshock is a nice combo. Or for a nasty plot set, going with encore as a way of being like anti-setup on things you outspeed while also setting up yourself. Something like NP/Encore/Sludge Bomb/Fireblast. Really, it's a bit of a shame. Barring the 4x weakness to ground, Poison/Fire is a solid solid defensive typing, but even with those defenses, you're hardly going to be taking even resisted hits very well. Corrosion is a good ability, but just not suited for this pokemon, beyond just being a nice little tool in your kit.
In lower tiers, it should do pretty well, I imagine, but even then not amazing power and those awful defenses will hold it back
It's disappointing but in when it comes to Salazzle with Corrosion it is completely outclassed by Araquinid and Pyukumuku out perform it with soak+toxic as they actually have the capability to, well, survive longer than 2 turns. If Salazzle had better stats it would probably be pretty scary but right now it's caught in the middle of being too weak for sweeping and too squishy for stalling.
To be honest, I am disappointed in its design
Couldn't have said it better myself.
EDIT: Also, another annoying thing about Salazzle is that most of its coverage is physical. I mean, it gets leech life and knock off, but both are pretty useless coming off such a weak attack, or other neat coverage options like shadow claw or acrobatics or even something like fake out. It's even more of a shame.
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^The fact Salazzle's special movepool is so shallow is why I think the Sub/Taunt+Toxic set is actually its best shot. Many special walls don't like being poisoned and Fire/Poison coverage isn't amazing but not too bad either with Fairy and Steel being extremely common typings currently. It has a shot at crippling walls regardless of typing and I do like that a lot.
The main problem I see with Toxic sub is the likeliness of Salazzle's sub getting crushed the same turn it gets set up. It would just come down to either Salazzle burning through hp for subs or switching out accomplishing nothing.
When it comes to UU/RU I'm not too familiar with what level of competition she would get there but OU would be too much. Here are some examples of how well she can take a hit:
0 SpA Toxapex Scald vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Salazzle: 156-186 (56.3 - 67.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (common threat)
252+ Atk Exeggutor-Alola Wood Hammer vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Salazzle: 70-82 (25.2 - 29.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO (x4 resisted hit, breaks sub)
0 Atk Ferrothorn Gyro Ball (150 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Salazzle: 115-136 (41.5 - 49%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (x2 resist, breaks sub)
252 SpA Life Orb Tapu Koko Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Salazzle: 231-274 (83.3 - 98.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
I know these are random examples but it shows how little punishment she can take. If you're mon has any neutral hit move, just stay in and spam it to break her sub over and over. Basically she will, in most cases, need to eat at least 1 hit out of sub if she wants to get toxic up because nearly any neutral hit will break the sub. I almost feel like protect would be better just because she doesn't need to pay 1/4 of her hp each time.
Probably not but like I said if you can throw any neutral hit on Salazalle after coming in, it's going to hurt.
That's the purpose of Sub+Disable. Even if it goes down once, Disable prevents the move from being used the next time, and very few opponents slower than you will have two equally threatening moves. This is exactly how SubDisable Gengar performed and it has similarly poor bulk, but Salazzle has even better speed, immunity to Burn and Toxic, and can Toxic virtually everything.
Gengar also had 3 super useful immunities and abused that to keep it safe and behind a sub because not a lot of Pokemon carried more than 1 move that could effectively break its subs.
Run Focus Sash
True, that was a big part of it. But Salazzle can still function similarly because you do have quite a fair amount of resistances to Fire, Fighting, Ice, Steel, Poison and 4x resists to Fairy, Bug and Grass. It shouldn't be hard to tell by looking at an opponent's team which mon are safe to come in against, Sub, and Disable what you have to. Will it work AS well as Gengar did? Hard to say, but it still functions the same in principle.
Ah I didn't even notice she got disable, this should be slashed into the OP build because without it the OP sub/toxic is pretty... meh for lack of a better term.
That defeats the purpose of Substitute.
Not necessarily.
+1 0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Salazzle: 55-65 (16.1 - 19.1%) -- possible 8HKO after Black Sludge recovery
76 SpA Mega Venusaur Sludge Bomb vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Salazzle: 93-109 (27.3 - 32%) -- 49.7% chance to 4HKO after Black Sludge recovery
76 SpA Mega Venusaur Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Salazzle: 38-45 (11.1 - 13.2%) -- possibly the worst move ever
44 Atk Technician Mega Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Salazzle: 72-85 (21.1 - 25%) -- possible 5HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252+ Atk Tapu Bulu Horn Leech vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Salazzle in Grassy Terrain: 76-90 (22.3 - 26.4%) -- possible 7HKO after Black Sludge recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery
0 SpA Heatran Lava Plume vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Salazzle: 61-72 (17.9 - 21.1%) -- possible 7HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Magearna Fleur Cannon vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Salazzle: 114-134 (33.5 - 39.4%) -- 20% chance to 3HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252 SpA Ninetales-Alola Blizzard vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Salazzle: 74-87 (21.7 - 25.5%) -- 1.1% chance to 4HKO after hail damage and Black Sludge recovery
That's not to say you should be overly brazen with it, but clearly there are a handful of things she can sit surprisingly comfortably in front of. Enough at least that she can definitely force switches thanks to the threat of her STABs alone and speed easily allowing for the Substitute.
+1 0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Salazzle: 55-65 (16.1 - 19.1%) -- possible 8HKO after Black Sludge recovery
76 SpA Mega Venusaur Sludge Bomb vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Salazzle: 93-109 (27.3 - 32%) -- 49.7% chance to 4HKO after Black Sludge recovery
76 SpA Mega Venusaur Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Salazzle: 38-45 (11.1 - 13.2%) -- possibly the worst move ever
44 Atk Technician Mega Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Salazzle: 72-85 (21.1 - 25%) -- possible 5HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252+ Atk Tapu Bulu Horn Leech vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Salazzle in Grassy Terrain: 76-90 (22.3 - 26.4%) -- possible 7HKO after Black Sludge recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery
0 SpA Heatran Lava Plume vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Salazzle: 61-72 (17.9 - 21.1%) -- possible 7HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Magearna Fleur Cannon vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Salazzle: 114-134 (33.5 - 39.4%) -- 20% chance to 3HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252 SpA Ninetales-Alola Blizzard vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Salazzle: 74-87 (21.7 - 25.5%) -- 1.1% chance to 4HKO after hail damage and Black Sludge recovery
That's not to say you should be overly brazen with it, but clearly there are a handful of things she can sit surprisingly comfortably in front of. Enough at least that she can definitely force switches thanks to the threat of her STABs alone and speed easily allowing for the Substitute.
Yeah. When you ignore 4x Earthquake weakness and Stealth Rock weakness, Salazzle's defensive typing is actually rather workable. 4X resistance to Grass, Bug, and Fairy as well as resistance to Fire, Steel, Ice, Poison, and Fighting. People get so caught up by Fire and Poison's Ground weakness and Fire's Rock weakness (which is only a potent issue in regards to Stealth Rock because the shaky Stone Edge tends to be the best attack for it available unless you're lucky like Nihilego). While Salazzle's far from a tank and certainly shouldn't go switching willy, nilly, to say that she can only come in on Toxic or Will-O-Wisp safely is a bit of an exaggeration. Yes, she has poor defensive stats, but you'd be surprised how much damage you can save yourself when you got a resistance covering you.
The problem is it's weaknesses may not be many, but they are commonly used. Ignoring SE hits like you suggest, neutral and even some x2 resists cripple it if not kill it. That makes it very dicey making those Toxic/WoW switches because if the enemy predicts the switch and has even moderate damage potential, you'll be in a bad position.
With Joroda's set I can see her coming in on a passive wall with no offensive typing advantages. Salazalle shouldn't swap into a hit unless it is very safe. That in mind, usually safe switch ins is a very sweeper-eque characteristic; not so much for a toxic stallers which commonly fill a role as tank. I will say the strategy is sound but it feels high-risk-low-reward and very situational.
Anyways, I'll probably give it a test run at some point because I love gimmicks and unique move sets so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
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