Sawk (QC 3/3)

[Steamroll]

original update brought to you by LucaroarkZ here.
Sawk 'em Boppers! Sawk 'em Boppers! Sawk 'em Boppers!

Sawk
"don't fuck with me nigga, I'm a 10th degree Black Belt!"

[Overview]
- Looks tougher than a regular Martial Arts fighter
- Single type in Fighting, both advantages and disadvantages
- Base 85 Speed, which is on the upper end of NU
- Base 125 Attack, among the highest in NU
- STAB Close Combat will hurt
- Great Wallbreaker in NU

[SET]
name: Choice Band
move 1: Close Combat
move 2: Stone Edge
move 3: Earthquake
move 4: Reversal
item: Choice Band
ability: Sturdy
nature: Jolly / Adamant
evs: 252 ATK / 4 DEF / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
- Absurdly powerful
- Close Combat nukes pretty much anything that doesn't resist or is immune to it
- Stone Edge to hit Ghost-Types like Missy and Poisons like Weezing
- Earthquake to nail Garbador and grounded Poisons and Electrics
- Reversal for when sturdy gets activated, essentially breaking through whatever mon that activates Sturdy (sans resistances and ghosts)

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
- Max attack to hit hard
- max speed and nature to outspeed Magmortar, other Sawk, CB Braviary, Skuntank and Absol
- Adamant nature allows Sawk the chance to 2hko Tangela after rocks
- does not like hazards, Cryogonal, Armaldo make good spin supporters.
- Needs support in the formes of sponging hits (Licky, Camerupt, Misdreavus, Alomomola, Golem, Lairon to name some) and burns (Magmortar, Camerupt, Emboar, Flareon) so it can keep doing its job
- Toxic as a sort of last stand, however Reversal does a fuck-ton to pretty much anything that doesn't resist it

[SET]
name: Choice Scarf
move 1: Close Combat
move 2: Stone Edge
move 3: Earthquake
move 4: Toxic
item: Choice Scarf
ability: Sturdy
nature: Jolly / Adamant
evs: 252 ATK / 4 DEF / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
- Close Combat for STAB and hitting a ton of mons
- Stone Edge for flyers, bugs and ghosts like misdreavus
- Earthquake for grounded Fires and Poisons
- Toxic to nail physical walls as a last resort (before death)
- Jolly Scarf outspeeds Scarf Braviary and Scarf Maggy, two mons that could otherwise outright kill neu nature Sawk
- Adamant Scarf outspeeds Jolly Swellow and +natured base 74 and lower (no base 73's in NU which is the actual benchmark), has use if Magmortar and Braviary are not major threats

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
- Misses out on many KOs that the band set otherwise achieves easily
- Great late game cleaner and general revenge killer
- still packs a punch even without anything boosting its attack
- doesn't mind hazards as much as the band set, but still needs to be aware of getting burned by Misdreavus or other Will-O-wispers, So mons like Magmortar and Camerupt do that well. Is also fearful of Para's because they ruin the use of the set, Grounds and Lightningrod mons help with Twave / Tbolt / Discharge while Missy doesn't need to worry about Bslamers (sans kanga and miltank).
- Reversal as a late game power move, works beautifully if Sturdy is activated due to outspeeding a large chunk of NU.

[Other Options]
- Its movepool is among the slimmest in NU
- Poison Jab to fuck Eggy and Tangela
- Bulk Up to try and boost attack, but overall defenses will be a major hindrance (and Gurdurr does it 300x better)
- Fist Plate to bluff a Choice Band, but the lack of power with other moves might miss a few key KOs.
- Fist Plate + Fling, although it throws the power of boosted CCs away to hit a select few mons in the tier, it can clear a path for Sawk to clean up later.
- Sawk is too fast to use counter, and generally would prefer to attack instead of trying to wall hits

[Checks & Counters]
- Musharna is the biggest check, able to shrug off any of Sawks attacks and simply OHKO back with Psychic after rocks damage
- Weezing walls Close Combats all day and can WoW, too. Difference is that Weezing doesn't give a shit about Stone Edge (26.3% max) and can kill back with Fire Blast.
- Physically Defensive Misdreavus avoids the 3hko against stone edge and can WoW Sawk, effectively crippling it. Missy also doesn't care about toxic as she can just Heal Bell it away.
- Choice Scarfers like Rotom-S and Haunter can come in and revenge (especially with CC drops) easily, while totally outspeeding Sawk. Band can be outsped by many more mons, due to the lower speed.
- Physically Defensive Eggy full on counters CB Sawk, while any other Eggy can easily kill CS sawk with Psychic
- Wynaut can kill off Sawk, but practically dies in the process
- Sturdy makes it difficult to outright kill Sawk, this can be remedied by Hazards, but most of the aforementioned checks and counters can take care of Sawk by themselves due to access to recovery (to an extent with some) and / or overall power.
- Sawk is difficult to identify, but when Sawk is discovered to be Scarfed many more checks open up. Quagsire, Shelgon, and Physically Defensive Torterra counter it, while offensive mons like Samurott, Marowak, Fraxure can tank one hit and easily OHKO back (marowak not giving a hoot about sturdy due to Bonemerang).

[Unreleased]
- Mold Breaker makes Sawk a lot more unpredictable.
- Comes down to preference between living a OHKO hit or punching through sturdymons and levitators
- Haunter isn't a check anymore and neither are any levitators (Weezing) sans Misdreavus. Sawk can also punch through the Sturdy Stealth Rock setters of NU (Golem, Probo, Regi, Bastio)

 

[DTC]

Musharna is the biggest counter, not Misdreavus. Musharna can actually OHKO Sawk (after SR, that is) and has much more reliable recovery. Not only that, but it takes much less damage as well.

The checks and counters section needs a lot more depth. Add everything in the checks and counters section that is said in this post. Sawk is an incredibly dangerous Pokemon in the NU meta; the checks and counters section needs to be very in-depth.

Mention Fling in Other Options to do a lot of damage to Misdreavus, Duosion, and Musharna. Mention Reversal in AC of Scarf, and Toxic in AC of Band.

Why did you mention Inner Focus in OO if it "sucks dick"? I understand that OO is the place for more gimmicky stuff, but things in OO should at least have some use.

Your mention of Mold Breaker in Unreleased is a bit off. It doesn't really make Sawk unwallable; it just allows it to break through Weezing. Mention that Mold Breaker gives Choice Band Sawk the niche of OHKO'ing pretty much every single Stealth Rock user. However, giving up Sturdy is not worth it unless you really need to get rid of Sturdy Stealth Rock users and you'd like to bypass Weezing. Being able to EQ Haunter and Missy (you still don't beat Missy if it's not weakened) rather than Stone Edge is kind of nice too.

 

[Steamroll]

well Stone Edge and EQ do the same damage to Misdreavus, so it's up to the battler to decide what move to use. Anyways making the changes.

EDIT: Done like dinner

 

[erisia]

You should probably mention why Payback isn't useful, as people may otherwise be tempted to use it. Other than that, Vileplume and Amoonguss deserve reference in Checks / Counters , and Haunter can switch into anything other than Stone Edge so it generally does well against Sawk unless it predicts and hits it on the switch. You mention it as a check in Unreleased, so it should be in Checks / Counters too.

The main niggle is that you should probably explain in more detail why the Band set is better than the Scarf set, and how they function differently. Explain why Sturdy makes Sawk such a unique Choice Scarfer and gives it a niche over other revenge killers, etc.

 

[Django]

• Toxic deserves an AC mention on Choice Band, as does Reversal on the Choice Scarf set. They serve very particular uses on both sets and can easily be used, even if the options you listed already are generally superior.
• The choice of nature on the Choice Band set needs to be explained. Jolly is used more as it outspeeds Magmortar, Skuntank, CB Braviary among others. However, Adamant has a good chance to 2HKO physically defensive Tangela after SR.
• The nature should be Jolly on Choice Scarf. It needs as much speed as it can get and with Adamant it loses to Scarf Braviary and Scarf Magmortar, two things it should expect to be able to revenge kill.
• Mention Exeggutor in Checks and Counters, and for this reason mention Poison Jab in Other Options as a way of beating Exeggutor without relying on Stone Edge.
• Maybe mention Salac Berry in unreleased? It could be a really interesting cleaner with Salac Berry + Reversal.

I think thats about it.

 

[Steamroll]

- Physically Defensive Eggy full on counters CB Sawk, while any other Eggy can easily kill CS sawk with Psychic

adding poison jab to OO and making those changes

 

[shnen]

Close Combat hits Tangela harder than Poison Jab so it doesn't hit that, it's basically only eggy that it hits harder.
Also I think physically defensive Torterra can also tank hits from Band Sawk but not sure, I'll run calcs
edit: ah nevermind all the Sawk that I was switching it in on must have been Scarf lol

 

[NatGeo]

I approve

 

[DTC]

QC Approve 2/3

(Ice-eyes, you aren't on the QC team anymore. lol)

 

[Steamroll]

this is close enough...

 

[Django]

QC APPROVE 3/3

 

[jake]

This hasn't been touched in over a month and Steamroll has graciously handed it over for someone eager to write it up.