Sceptile (3/3)

[Heysup]

[Overview]

- Fast, strong, and not particularly frail.
- Mono Grass-typing is pretty solid defensively.
- Decent Special movepool
- Great physical movepool
- did i mention fast.

[SET]
name: Substitute + Leech Seed
move 1: Leech Seed
move 2: Substitute
move 3: Giga Drain / Leaf Storm
move 4: Focus Blast / Hidden Power Fire
item: Leftovers
ability: Overgrow
nature: Timid
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 Def / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

- Fast and forces switches, screams "SubSeeder"
- Substitute then Leech Seed and substitute again and again until in KO range.
- Giga Drain heals you back up when you KO something, but Leaf Storm can KO from a greater range causing you to not lose as much HP from Substitute - trade off.
- Focus Blast lets you keep 372 Speed but is not too reliable for dealing with Ferroseed.
- Hidden Power Fire lowers your Speed to 371, so you may as well keep it high enough to beat base 110s (350).


[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

- Ferroseed trappers.
- Spikes and Stealth Rock make your opponent live through hell.
- Water-type lures.

[SET]
name: Special Sweeper
move 1: Giga Drain
move 2: Focus Blast
move 3: Hidden Power Ice / Hidden Power Rock
move 4: Leaf Storm / Synthesis
item: Life Orb / Choice Specs
ability: Overgrow
nature: Timid
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

- Fast and powerful.
- Decent longevity.
- Bulky Water-types not too common, but counters most of them quite easily.
- Giga Drain hurts and is a great sweeping move.
- Focus Blast for Steel-types and hits Clefable pretty damn hard.
- Leaf Storm hurts a lot. OHKOes everything "moderately" bulky that Giga Drain just can't do (Rotom, Hitmonlee, etc).
- Synthesis for healing if you don't want to use Leaf Storm cause you're scurred of -2 SpA drop.
- if you use HP Rock drop Speed until base 110s are outsped (also outpaces Adamant Swellow if that matters idk)
- Choice Specs gives you a decent amount of power, and Sceptile actually needs to keep its HP high.
- Life Orb is kinda better since you can switch / use Synthesis.

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

- Bulky Water counter, feel free to use Entei, Moltres, and Rock-types etc.
- Takes Earthquakes pretty well also.
- Need to get rid of Moltres / use Stealth Rock / have a switch-in.
- A good cleaner, wall breakers are needed to weaken munch, Ferro, clefable.


[SET]
name: Swords Dance
move 1: Swords Dance
move 2: Leaf Blade
move 3: Brick Break
move 4: Acrobatics
item: Flight Gem
ability: Unburden
nature: Adamant
EVs: 80 HP / 252 Atk / 176 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

- Unique sweeper, sets up and sweeps like most others but there is a catch.
- One shot to sweep.
- Step 1: remove powerful priority users
- Step 2: Weaken excessively bulky Pokemon (Torkoal, Uxie, Ferroseed etc)
- Step 3: SWEEEEEEP
- Leaf Blade hurts, i guess.
- Acrobatics + Flight Gem OHKOes Moltres at +2.
- Brick Break hits Ferroseed and other Steels.

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

- Spikes + SR close some KOes
- Wall breakers

[Other Options]

- Mixed isn't strong enough either way.
- HP rock...fuk IVs.
- Modest...no notable KOes.

[Checks and Counters]

- Ferroseed - careful HP Fire + Focus Blast + Drain Punch from Swords Dance does 70%.
- Clefable - Careful Swords Dance + Focus Blast.
- Munchlax - Careful Swords Dance + Focus Blast.
- Grass-types - Careful HP Ice and Acrobatics
- Moltres / Fires......careful Stealth Rock.

 

[NatGeo]

maybe earthquake in ac of swords dance to mess with torkoal / entei? crunch / uxie along those same lines.

on that note, cb is an interesting option in OO, considering it's not too bad physically witha cb boost. something like leaf blade / quick attack / eq / drain punch, or something along those lines.

nm else to say, you covered most of it.

 

[Rakan]

Drain Punch is a 4th gen move only... Replace it with Rock Slide / EQ

maybe Quick Attack in OO? lol

 

[Heysup]

Tested it with Brick Break, thought i just forgot about Drain Punch. Nice catch.

It's too weak for Choice Band.

 

[Mijzelffan]

Since most people expect a flight gem on Swords Dance Sceptile and will likely switch to something resistant after Sceptile dances, maybe mention grass gem (and maybe fighting gem) in additional comments?

 

[Heysup]

That is likely the case but the Pokemon that Sceptile actually needs to beat rely on Flight Gem / Acrobatics being at 110 base power, so using another Gem is very unreliable. Either way, they won't switch to something that can't take a Grass-type attack and there are many 4x resists. Fighting Gem may never even be activated, similar problem but even more rare.

Most people don't even think Sceptile is going to be SD in my experience.

 

[Cherub Agent]

heysup, i've had a lot of success with life orb on the SubSeeder, especially since giga drain helps heal you too. Mabye an AC mention?

 

[shrang]

Slash Earthquake and Rock Slide (as well as Overgrow, since Sceptile is fast as fuck anyway) on the Swords Dance set? EQ hits most Steels harder than Brick Break does (and is just strong in general), while Rock Slide still OHKOs Moltres.

 

[PrimeMinister]

No choice scarf set? I realize sceptile is very fast, but maybe something like this......
Sceptile @choice scarf
Leaf storm
Giga drain
Focus blast
Dragonbreath/HP fire/HP ice
Nature-modest or timid
Evs 252spA/4spdef/252speed
Ability- overgrow

I know this is an odd set(and please, ease up on the insults, I'm a rookie) but I think it can work effectively. Choice scarf with maxed out evs and (depending on your choice of natures) with a timid nature give Sceptile ridiculous speed. Leaf storm and giga drain, powerful, giga drain used as recovery, blah blah blah. Focus blast, nice coverage, wrecks steels, blah blah blah. Now, this looks dumb, I know. Dragon breath, HP ice or HP fire. Yes, sceptile gets Dragonbreath. All of these three moves are just....for.....coverage.....I guess....? Anyway, please tell me your thoughts, but go easy on me.

 

[PK Gaming]

Echoing what Shrang said. I kinda wanna see a mixed set but its not the end of the world if you don't include it.

QC APPROVED (1/3)

 

[Molk]

No choice scarf set? I realize sceptile is very fast, but maybe something like this......
Sceptile @choice scarf
Leaf storm
Giga drain
Focus blast
Dragonbreath/HP fire/HP ice
Nature-modest or timid
Evs 252spA/4spdef/252speed
Ability- overgrow

I know this is an odd set(and please, ease up on the insults, I'm a rookie) but I think it can work effectively. Choice scarf with maxed out evs and (depending on your choice of natures) with a timid nature give Sceptile ridiculous speed. Leaf storm and giga drain, powerful, giga drain used as recovery, blah blah blah. Focus blast, nice coverage, wrecks steels, blah blah blah. Now, this looks dumb, I know. Dragon breath, HP ice or HP fire. Yes, sceptile gets Dragonbreath. All of these three moves are just....for.....coverage.....I guess....? Anyway, please tell me your thoughts, but go easy on me.

why not just run dragon pulse? sceptile gets that too.

 

[Rakan]

Choice Scarf is terrible on a Pokemon with such high Speed already. Sceptile needs the power boost to its average Special Attack given by Life Orb / Choice Specs. Also, Dragon Pulse is useless, Hidden Power Ice hits Altaria harder. Usually the course of action is to never use a Dragon-type move on a Pokemon that doesn't get STAB on it (good neutral coverage =/= super effective coverage).

 

[Heysup]

Slash Earthquake and Rock Slide (as well as Overgrow, since Sceptile is fast as fuck anyway) on the Swords Dance set? EQ hits most Steels harder than Brick Break does (and is just strong in general), while Rock Slide still OHKOs Moltres.

I didn't really want to include those because it has no place in this specific metagame. Earthquake is practically useless unless your aiming for Torkoal - Steelix is still 2HKOed by both Brick Break and Earthquake, but most importantly you now have something to hit Ferroseed with.

I'll mention it set comments, but I don't know why any one would use that set over this one in this metagame.

Echoing what Shrang said. I kinda wanna see a mixed set but its not the end of the world if you don't include it.

QC APPROVED (1/3)

Mixed set didn't work out for me, I can keep testing and work on including the "best possible" mixtile set if you like.

 

[Mike Legend]

I find a mixed set weak and underwhelming in general. It gets a no from me.

QC APPROVED (2/3)

 

[Heysup]

One more QC check then I'll write it up.

 

[Oglemi]

QC 3/3

 

[Theorymon]

Okay so apparently, Komodo is taking this over since Heysup asked him to ask a mod... so locking!