shaymin-sky

[n10siT]

[OVERVIEW]

• good coverage with an insane speed tier makes skymin a really good attacker
• serene grace breaks through walls with seed flare and nets key flinches with air slash
• Shaymin deals with threatening water types like Milotic and Suicune, as well as fighting-types like Scrafty
  
• while its typing is good offensively, its 5 common weaknesses make it easy to take down. this is helped with the use of a focus sash.

[SET]
name: Fast Attacker
move 1: Air Slash
move 2: Seed Flare
move 3: Earth Power
move 4: Protect
item: Focus Sash
ability: Serene Grace
nature: Timid
evs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
========

• Air Slash is skymin's flying stab, which covers fighting-types like Scrafty and grass-types like opposing shaymin-sky. it's 60% chance to flinch doesn't hurt either
• Seed Flare covers water-types like Azumarill and Rotom-W, and Rock types like Rhyperior, all while discouraging switches due to the 80% chance to drop the defending pokemon's special defense by 2 stages.
• Earth power's main utility is hitting opposing heatran, but it can be used to pick off weakened Steel-types like Aegislash.
  
• Tailwind can be used over earth power to give your team some speed control if you feel like your team handles heatran well enough
• protect is protect

Set Details
========

• focus sash is the best item due to shaymin-sky's poor defensive stats and typing, as it allows shaymin to take any one hit and return damage, or stay in on a threat in a pinch
• the EV spread makes sure to maximize both shaymin's speed and special attack, so it moves as fast and hits as hard as possible
• timid nature maximizes speed

Usage Tips:
========

• shaymin-sky is best used as a revenge killer, as it has a hard time switching in on most attacks and preserving the focus sash is usually vital.
  
• skymin also works extremely well in the lategame due to its high speed stat, and its ability to steal wins with air slash flinches

Team Options:
========

• a redirector like Jirachi works really well with shaymin-sky, as they only share one weakness and jirachi can redirect ice beams and thunderbolts with ease
• something to deal with opposing charizard-y and volcanion is vital, so landorus-therian or incarnate pair well with shaymin sky. if you are using tailwind over earth power, you have to make sure your team can handle heatran too, so again, either landorus works well with shaymin sky
• kyurem-black is another big threat to shaymin-sky, especially if it's a scarf kyurem, so pokemon like tapu lele and sylveon are nice teammates for shaymin.
• shaymin-sky is weak to many common spread moves, like heat wave, rock slide, and icy wind, so a wide guard user, such as aegislash, may fit well on a shaymin-sky team.

[Strategy Comments]
Other Options
========

• a life orb can be used in place of a focus sash to increase shaymin's damage output, but this further implicates shaymins lack of bulk and loses the utility of a focus sash. a grassium z or flyinium z can be used for the same purpose, but again, focus sash provides some much needed staying power for such a frail pokemon.
• hidden power ice can be used to hit landorus and salamence for big damage, but this move has less utility than earth power or either of shaymin's stabs
• shaymin can use substitute to take advantage of free turns, but this is usually worse than just having an attack or tailwind.

Checks and Counters
========

• **Ice-types**: ice-types like kyurem-black and ninetales-alola are good vs shaymin sky, as ice beam will always OHKO and hail will break shaymin's sash.
• **Fire-types**: fire-types like mega charizard y and volcanion are a big issue for shaymin sky, as both of these pokemon can take an attack from shaymin and ohko back. heatran is also an issue if shaymin is not carrying earth power
• **Steel-types**: most steels not named heatran do not take a large amount of damage from earth power, so it can be tough for shaymin to break through pokemon like jirachi and aegislash.

 

[Pocket]

Idk why skymin's bulk is considered bad. It has more bulk than most of the tapus, and we haven't necessitated sash on them. Back in ORAS, it was more indicated bc of talonflame, but with sand on the rise I personally prefer life orb or a z crystal to increase its damage output. Or a resist berry to guarantee survival from certain moves. Speaking of z crystal, you forgot to mention groundium z, which offers a 180 bp ground coverage move! I am pretty sure that can OHKO shucatran ;d