Sceptile (Analysis)



Sceptile

QC: [Oglemi] [PK Gaming] [Chou Toshio]
GP: [Cosmicexplorer & Kmuffinman] [V0x]

[Overview]

<p>Sceptile has always been the Grass-type staple of the UU metagame, boasting great Special Attack, decent Attack, and blistering Speed. It still holds the position of the fastest Grass-type in the UU metagame bar Chlorophyll-boosted Victreebel and Shiftry (though with Unburden activated it outspeeds both). Sceptile's movepool is considerably large, having access to a myriad of physical moves along with Swords Dance. On top of that, it possesses quite a few special moves. Sceptile can also run a very effective Substitute + Leech Seed set due to its high speed. BW has granted Sceptile the ability Unburden, which is somewhat unnecessary for Sceptile, but allows it to outspeed even Choice Scarf users after the ability has been activated. Despite competition in Roserade and Shaymin, Sceptile is a great Grass-type addition to any team for its offensive prowess and unmatched speed.</p>

[SET]
name: Swords Dance
move 1: Swords Dance
move 2: Leaf Blade
move 3: Earthquake
move 4: Rock Slide / Acrobatics
item: Life Orb / Flying Gem
ability: Overgrow / Unburden
nature: Jolly / Adamant
evs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>Despite its seemingly lackluster power, Swords Dance is now Sceptile's most dangerous set, having great coverage with just three moves. STAB Leaf Blade destroys anything that doesn't resist it after a boost, and the high critical hit rate can come in handy as well. Earthquake takes care of Steel-types that wall Sceptile's other attacks, and also hits Fire- and Poison-types for serious damage. Rock Slide should be used with a Life Orb, the ability Overgrow, and a Jolly nature, while Flying Gem should be used with Acrobatics for the power boost and the activation of Unburden.</p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

<p>The EV spread with a Jolly nature maximizes Speed and Attack, though an Adamant nature could be used with Unburden since Sceptile's Speed is doubled after Unburden is activated, allowing it to outspeed even Choice Scarf users with a high base Speed stat, such as Azelf. An alternative EV spread of 224 HP / 252 Atk / 32 Def along with an Adamant nature maximizes Sceptile's Attack and gives it more bulk to survive hits, as it already outspeeds Pokemon with Base 115 Speed holding a Choice Scarf after Unburden has been activated. A Grass Gem can be used with Leaf Blade while a Rock Gem can be used with Rock Slide as alternatives to activate Unburden. Sceptile also has access to other physical coverage moves such as X-Scissor, Crunch, Dragon Claw, Bullet Seed, Brick Break, Drain Punch, ThunderPunch, Low Kick, Pursuit, and Quick Attack, but they do not provide the same coverage that Rock Slide and Earthquake or Earthquake and Acrobatics do. In addition, many of these moves are illegal with Unburden, as they are fourth generation tutor moves, and therefore are not worth the loss of the ability. Although this set is physical, Fighting-types are still good partners to deal with Chansey, which can take a Swords Dance-boosted Leaf Blade and cripple Sceptile with Thunder Wave or Toxic. In addition, a strong special attacker such as Raikou is a good complement to the physical nature of this set.</p>


[SET]
name: Special Attacker
move 1: Leaf Storm
move 2: Focus Blast
move 3: Hidden Power Ice / Hidden Power Fire
move 4: Giga Drain
item: Choice Specs / Life Orb
ability: Overgrow
nature: Timid
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>This was Sceptile's staple set in DPP UU, decimating anything that didn't resist its STAB Leaf Storm. Leaf Storm is Sceptile's most powerful move, and works well with Choice Specs since Sceptile will be switching often. Focus Blast hits Registeel and other Steel-types for massive damage, and does a decent amount of damage to Chansey. The Hidden Power type depends on what your team needs; Hidden Power Ice hits Dragon- and Flying-types, while Hidden Power Fire hits Steel- and Bug-types. Both Hidden Power types hit opposing Grass-types coming in to wall you, though bulky Grass-types such as Shaymin, Celebi, and Roserade won't be taking too much damage regardless of the super effective Hidden Power. In the final moveslot, Giga Drain is a useful alternative to Leaf Storm that does acceptable damage and heals Sceptile at the same time.</p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

<p>Earthquake is an option to hit Fire-types that otherwise wall this set bar the inaccurate Focus Blast. The EV spread along with a Timid nature maximizes Speed and Special Attack. A Hasty nature should be used if Sceptile is running Earthquake to hit Fire-types. Choice Specs should be used with a moveset with all special attacks, while Life Orb should be used if Sceptile is running Earthquake. Teammates such as Heracross or Gallade are needed to take out Chansey and other special walls since Focus Blast does pitiful damage to them.</p>


[SET]
name: SubSeed
move 1: Substitute
move 2: Leech Seed
move 3: Giga Drain
move 4: Hidden Power Fire
item: Leftovers
ability: Overgrow
nature: Timid
evs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>Sceptile is able to abuse the well-known "SubSeed" strategy due to its high Speed stat. The combination of Substitute and Leech Seed is lethal to anything slower that is not a Grass-type, or something with Magic Guard such as Clefable. Giga Drain is the STAB move of choice, as it does damage and recovers Sceptile's health, adding to the recovery provided by Leech Seed. Grass-types are hit hard by Hidden Power Fire, as are Steel- and Bug-types that resist Giga Drain.</p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

<p>Sceptile's high Special Attack stat differentiates it from Whimsicott as a user of SubSeed, as it can actually do damage to opponents. For example, most Grass-types that seek to wall Sceptile are hit hard by Hidden Power Fire. Leftovers provides even more recovery in addition to Leech Seed and Giga Drain. Overgrow is the preferred ability because Unburden is useless with this moveset, and due to Substitute constantly wearing down its HP, Giga Drain becomes much more powerful in a pinch. Sceptile utilizing SubSeed can actually beat Chansey, unlike Sceptile's other sets, due to Leech Seed recovering the entire amount of health lost from using Substitute. Teammates to eliminate bulky Grass-types such as Roserade are needed, as even a super effective Hidden Power won't be doing much damage to them. Thus, powerful physical attackers are appreciated, as the majority of Grass-types have low physical defense.</p>

[Other Options]

<p>Sceptile has many other options available, though most are gimmicky and aren't viable for serious competitive play. Perhaps the only other set worth mentioning is one of Endeavor and Quick Attack combined with a Focus Sash, which allows Sceptile to defeat almost anything that is not a Ghost-type. However, with the prevalence of Hail, entry hazards, and Ghost-types, this strategy is rather ineffective in the UU metagame, and Sceptile has much better sets to run. Sceptile has an expansive movepool consisting of both physical and special moves, and also has an interesting support movepool with moves such as Synthesis, Safeguard, and Grasswhistle, but none of these are viable options on any of the aforementioned sets due to Sceptile's lack of bulk and moveslots.</p>

[Checks and Counters]

<p>As with most special attackers, Chansey walls the Special Attacker set, but loses to the Swords Dance and SubSeed sets most of the time. Specially defensive Registeel isn't 2HKOed by Focus Blast and is able to cripple Sceptile with Thunder Wave or Toxic in return. Steelix checks the Swords Dance set and can KO with STAB Gyro Ball, especially if Unburden has been activated. Status cripples Sceptile, specifically burn, paralysis, and Toxic for the physical variant and paralysis and Toxic for the special and SubSeed variants. Grass-types wall Sceptile unless it runs Acrobatics or a super effective Hidden Power, and even then, bulky Grass-types such as Shaymin or Roserade wall Sceptile regardless.</p>
 

prem

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an unburden set could be useful. even with 0 speed investment after an unburden he becomes faster than scarf 100s so you could just swords dance up with some bulk use the correct gem and sweep. i had decent sucess with this in ou, so in UU i think this could actually work wellish.

if the opponent uses knock off will sceptile get its unburden boost?
 
I think Whimsicott, and to an extent Cottonee, makes a better subseeder than Sceptile. I don't think using Sceptile as a subseeder is a good choice.
 

prem

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whimscott is ou, so he has no relevance.
but sceptile is a good sub seeder because it has an offensive presence unlike a cottonee which literally can only do one thing.
 

Limewire

PRESS R TO WIN
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For the Life Orb set, I would slash HP Ice and Dragon Pulse together, since they have similar coverage, and HP Ice hits more threats IMO, so the set looks like:

name: Life Orb
move 1: Leaf Storm
move 2: Focus Blast
move 3: Hidden Power Ice / Hidden Power Fire / Dragon Pulse
move 4: Earthquake

Plus, this makes the set look neater! :)

As a final note, would Brick Break be a good option on the LO set to hit Chansey harder than Earthquake?
 

Jirachee

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Giga Drain should also be an option on the LO set over Dragon Pulse and Earthquake sine these moves have pretty meh coverage along with the other moves of the set, and even if 2 grass moves are redundant, Giga Drain has no drawbacks and heals LO recoil, taking advantage of all those bulky water types, Rhyperior and whatever.
 
I've seen reachzero use an SD set to great aplomb with Flight Gem along with Acrobatics Leaf Blade and Rock Slide. Works pretty well actually, since boosted acrobatics actually does a lot.

EDIT: My bad Bre, EQ wasn't on there :/
 
an unburden set could be useful. even with 0 speed investment after an unburden he becomes faster than scarf 100s so you could just swords dance up with some bulk use the correct gem and sweep. i had decent sucess with this in ou, so in UU i think this could actually work wellish.

if the opponent uses knock off will sceptile get its unburden boost?
I was thinking a Chesto berry, Rest, Sword dance with unburden and maybe bulk but sceptile is realtively frail already and without the speed it might not be able to rest sucessfully.

name: Chesto Rest
move 1: Sword dance / Hone Claws
move 2: Rest
move 3: Leaf Blade
move 4: Rock Slide
item: Chesto Berry
Ability: Unburden
nature: Jolly / Adamant
evs: 4 HP / 252 Att / 252 Spe

Although with Leaf blade and one other coverage move, Sceptile is gonna have a hard time with coverage in general.

Leaf Blade and Rock slide are good coverage if you take out all the steels, maybe partnered together with Magneton or Dugtrio?

EDIT: I've come up with a couple of interesting gimmicky sets for Sceptile, you're welcome to help me improve them or just ignore them.

name: I'm on fire :P
move 1: Giga Drain /Energy ball / Leaf Storm
move 2: Focus Blast
move 3: Fling
move 4: HP-Ice / HP-fire / Synthesis
item: Flame orb
Ability: Unburden
nature: Timid /Modest
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

Giga Drain is the first and main option for stab as it has the secondary effect of recovering HP lost to burns.

Although Flame orb makes Sceptile suffer an annoying 12.5% damage turn, the bright side is that it immune to all other status such as Sleep and Paralyze, once you fling that flame orb on something that hates burns, your speed will be doubled to 774 allowing to outspeed a lot of threats, even things like Yanmega. Synthesis is an option to heal off those nasty burns but Sceptile won't survive many hits anyway, a bulkier set could be used although you'll need to ask someone else about the EVs.

Magic guard Pokemon probably do this better with trick and psycho shift, The point of this set is to prevent other status, Paralyze would probably be the end of Sceptile, while burn isn't so bad, it just has a short life. Although the main point is to leverage the unburden speed boost.

name: Double Storm
move 1: Leaf Storm
move 2: Focus Blast
move 3: HP-Ice/HP-fire
move 4: Giga Drain / Energy Ball / Earthquake
item: White Herb
Ability: Unburden
nature: Timid / Hasty
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

This set allows you to spam Leaf Storm twice with out negative -2 Special attack after using it because of white herb, which also at the same time doubles your speed, although the choice specs sets set may be superior in terms of sheer power giving you an initial +1 special attack, after using leaf storm you're actually at -1 special attack if you also include choice specs, what this set has over choice specs is that you are not stuck on one move and after using leaf storm you get the unburden speed boost of 774, and after your 1st leaf storm your special attack stay neutral at 0.

name: Breaking My $500 Sunglasses :P
move 1: Leaf Storm/ Giga drain / Energy Ball
move 2: Focus Blast
move 3: HP-Ice / HP-Fire
move 4: Fling
item: Choice specs
Ability: Unburden
nature: Timid / Modest
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

This set gives you the power of choice specs and the utility of being able to change moves if battle situtation changes if power isn't as important as speed or utility. after you throw away the specs, you also get the nice speed boost.
 
I'd suggest Swords Dance to look something more like this:

name: Swords Dance
move 1: Swords Dance
move 2: Leaf Blade
move 3: Earthquake
move 4: Acrobatics
item: Flying Gem
nature: Adamant/Jolly
evs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

With the lack of Skarmory and Bronzong in UU, this doesn't get walled by anything without random balloons. Bring it in on something that it can force out, SD up, and then since they likely brought in a grass resist (most common ones in UU are bug- or grass-type), fire off a base 165 Acrobatics, and now sceptile has nearly 600 attack and nearly 700 speed, and your opponent's grass resist is likely dead. Speed EV's could be moved into HP, but sceptile is frail enough that the extra bulk isn't particularly helpful, and the speed lets it function even when it hasn't set up.
 
Sceptile sub leech serious an good option.

name: Sub Seech Seed
move 1: Substitute
move 2: Leeh Seed
move 3: Giga Drain
move 4: Hidden Power Ice / Hidden power Fire
item: Leftovers
nature: Timid
evs: 252 Spe / 252 Sp Atk / 4 hp
 

breh

強いだね
ok, so the SD set needs to be first.

while the special set is just something that roserade and similar grass types come in on and laugh at, SD actually poses a very big threat to them with acrogem. I've had SD sceptile used against me numerous times last round and I have come to fear that thing much more than LO; it is almost entirely because of acrobatics.

I asked scoopapa for advice and he told me that unburden is not necessary; Overgrow also allows you to win against chansey 1v1 (you will get up to +4 while chansey tries to kill you; at +4 and overgrow, you have a good chance of OHKOing chansey and will OHKO with SR).

basically, the set should look like this:

[SET]
name: Swords Dance
move 1: Swords Dance
move 2: Leaf Blade
move 3: Earthquake
move 4: Acrobatics
item: Flight Gem
Ability: Overgrow / Unburden
nature: Jolly (adamant is not worth it; you speed tie with mismagius)
evs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
 
Sceptile @ Choice Specs
Trait: Overgrow
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Focus Blast
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Leaf Storm

This set hits insanely hard, and outspeeds anything not named Jolteon or Aerodactyl. HP Ice hits Flygon and Altaria hard, and can also hit other Grasses like Roserase for SE damage. Focus Blast is needed to take care of non-CM Cobalion, Durant, and Registeel. Dragon Pulse is usable here, but it should go in OO. I think this deserves a set of it's own, since it functions differently from the first set, that goes mixed.
 

prem

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ok, so the SD set needs to be first.

while the special set is just something that roserade and similar grass types come in on and laugh at, SD actually poses a very big threat to them with acrogem. I've had SD sceptile used against me numerous times last round and I have come to fear that thing much more than LO; it is almost entirely because of acrobatics.

I asked scoopapa for advice and he told me that unburden is not necessary; Overgrow also allows you to win against chansey 1v1 (you will get up to +4 while chansey tries to kill you; at +4 and overgrow, you have a good chance of OHKOing chansey and will OHKO with SR).

basically, the set should look like this:

[SET]
name: Swords Dance
move 1: Swords Dance
move 2: Leaf Blade
move 3: Earthquake
move 4: Acrobatics
item: Flight Gem
Ability: Overgrow / Unburden
nature: Jolly (adamant is not worth it; you speed tie with mismagius)
evs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
shouldnt you barely outspeed mismagius (i think you do). anyway rock slide shoulbe used over earthquake, because zapdos is so much more common than steels like magneton. it also hits rotom-f and h hard who otherwise wall your set.

and while unburden isnt exactly needed, it give you one shot at sweeping without fear of scarfers (which is the reason why i think its important, not because it needs the speed boost otherwise)
 

JockeMS

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No, if he goes for a neutral Speed nature and max Speed, Sceptile only ties with max Speed Mismagius.
 

prem

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when running unburden you should slash acrobat with earthquake (no rockslide means zapdos walls you while with rock slide only like lol bronzor walls you).

also id change the ev spread to outspeed base 100s when adamant with unburden, cant remember what is exactly though
 
Ummmm..... Unburden isn't released so I would take out the SD set because Special Attacker outclasses it in every sense of the word. I might be wrong as this may be a bit outdated, idk.
 

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