Viability of Kamikaze Wallbreaking (UU)

[FPlease]

When people make HO teams the people use good coverage and switch initiative to get an eventual sweep. A minority of teams, however, choose the simple tactic of forced trading of pokemon until something has no check or counter for an eventual sweep. To achieve this, they go through the route of kamikaze wall breaking. Kamikaze wall breakers have just one objective which is just to punch a big hole in enemies' defense. Potentially having a 5v5 or 4v4 situation which your prepared for and your opponent, most likely, has a broken defensive structure.

Here are some wall breaking sets. I am excluding the 4 EV thing because it's really irrelevant to this topic.


Heracross @ Toxic Orb/Flame orb (just to avoid any argument about orbs)
Trait: Guts
EVs: 252 Att / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sword Dance
- Close Combat
- Megahorn
- Stone Edge

This is probably the most popular wallbreaker in UU. It sword dances on the switch and hits something hard with +4 to either OHKO or bring it down to a smidgen of HP to an easily revenge-able range.


Victini @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Victory Star
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Final Gambit
- V-create
- U-turn
- Fusion Bolt/Brick Break

Victini is pretty straight foward. Final gambit with 404 HP and take something with it. It's wonderful for baiting bulky waters like suicune and blastoise. A team can be created around this with exploiting the fact that your opponents' bulky waters are no longer.

Darmanitan @ Left Overs/Life orb
Trait: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 Att/ 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Belly Drum
- Fire Punch
- Rock Slide
- Super Power

This set looks gimmicky, but still does the roll of a wallbreaker. What do you when you see a darmanitan? Your first thought is scarf/ life orb/ four attacks and instantly switch in a bulky water or your best physical wall to stop it if your conservative. If this is the case, say bye to one of your pokemon. It belly drums on the switch and proceeds to obliterate something. Would be funny if your opponent can't out speed it or have no priority *cough*The Greatest Playstyle*cough* because from there, my bet is 5 turns for the finish, no more.

Fire Punch over flare blitz, you don't want to die to recoil. Lefties or life orb is your choice. With sheer force you only get LO recoil with superpower, but maybe having LO is overkill, maybe.

Omastar @ Focus Sash
Trait: Weak armor/Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Shell Smash
- Surf/Hydro Pump
- Ice beam
- Hidden Power (Electric)

Wasn't sure whether to include this, but if played right it should get at least one kill and with rain it can technically boast +3 STAB and +6 Speed. This looks like the roll of a sweeper and I guess double ups as one, but it still doesn't hide the fact it will 95% of the time KO something when it's still alive with a shell smash. With hydro pump in the rain it guarantees a 2HKO on almost every specially defensive wall (I'm thinking ferroseed as the sole survivor) so the the logs so similar to this.

Shell smash, opponent switches, hit wall, get hit to focus sash, hit wall and wall faints.

Shell smash, frail poke hits to focus sash, OHKO frail poke.

Obviously this wall breaker needs an intact focus sash to operate to its full potential.

 

[thawigga]

Victini @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Victory Star
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Final Gambit
- V-create
- U-turn
- Fusion Bolt/Brick Break

Victini is pretty straight foward. Final gambit with 404 HP and take something with it. It's wonderful for baiting bulky waters like suicune and blastoise. A team can be created around this with exploiting the fact that your opponents' bulky waters are no longer.

This is exactly what a mono-fire team needs these are actually useful movesets and I will try to fit these on a team and come back with results
Edit: results

Victini is a reallygood choice if you have entry support on your team with this set.

Belly Drum - Darmanitan is easily countered and fairly frail he needs support in the form of screens or wish . I found him much more useful when using spin support aswell

 

[czechm8]

Aggron@Choice Band
Adamant nature
EVs: 4HP 252 Atk 252 Spd
Head Smash
Aqua tail
Earthquake
Heavy Slam

Basically come in on something you're not weak to and just click head smash. It hits stupid hard 2HKOing slowbro iirc. If you see your'e opponent with something that resists it then use the appropriate move; then get out before they kill you. Repeat.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

Kamikaze wallbreaking is not one of my favorite strategies in UU at the moment, simply because wallbreaking oftentimes does not require suicide tactics to accomplish.

In all honesty, there aren't that many wallbreakers in UU that employ a kamikaze strategy because most wallbreakers just blast through their opponents anyway. Heracross doesn't need to run Flame Orb SD because it rips through UU with its Choice Band set. Darmanitan doesn't need Belly Drum when it eats much of UU for breakfast with a Life Orb or Choice Band. I find that if a team needs a wallbreaker, just give a common Physical Pokemon a Choice Band or give a common Special Pokemon Choice Specs and watch them wreck their counters without having to go kamikaze.

For example, CB Aggron isn't that useful in UU because CB Escavalier does slow wallbreaking better with an arguably better STAB (Bug is better than Rock because it can kill Bronzong), better bulk, and Pursuit.

In terms of Special attacking, why go with Scarf Victini, one of the most situational Pokemon in the game because it runs no offensive EVs. Even with moves like V-Create and Fusion Bolt, hitting off of an overall pathetic 237 Attack leaves a lot to be desired. Final Gambit is nice, but Scarfers aren't meant to be kamikaze Pokemon and the only merit Scarftini has is that it can abuse Final Gambit. Useful, but remember: you don't control who you kill with Final Gambit and if you don't hit the wall that you need to hit, you've completely wasted Scarftini.

Slow, powerful wallbreaking is the gold standard of hard hits in UU. Power-boosting isn't as viable as bulky Choice attacks because bulk is often more important than power when it comes to UU's wrecking balls. Why do people use Escavalier over Aggron? Because it hits like a truck while being able to take usually two neutral hits. Why do people use Choice Heracross or Substitute Heracross instead of Flame Orb Heracross? Because the ability to take a hit if needed is one of the qualities of Heracross, and Flame Orb ruins that trait. Look at the Heracross set above. Because it needs to waste a turn waiting for Flame Orb or getting a chance to set up, it's a sitting duck for one turn. The opponent can switch to a counter. With Choice Band Heracross, the opponent has to take a hit from over 500 Attack just to get to a counter while Heracross takes no residual damage.

Belly Drum Darmnaitan is not viable at all in UU in my opinion, as you'll rarely get more than one kill with it. All too often Belly Drum Darmanitan will fail to get a single kill because it has no ability to take hits at all, and can't KO anything with a +0 Fire Punch. And with BDarmanitan, you'll probably have to use Fire Punch over Flare Blitz because a Flare Blitz Belly Drum Darmanitan has zero staying power. Also, one problem with Darmanitan is that it doesn't force switches well because one attack will usually bring it down. The times where it does force switches, it's usually to something faster than it or a Water type. I guess you might be able to beat your opponent's Water with BDarmanitan some of the time, but is that really worth a team slot when Arcanine can do that as well? Or an Electric type can? Not in my opinion. Not to mention Nidoking, who powers through just about anything that's not a dedicated Special wall like Umbreon or Snorlax.


All in all, I don't see the point of kamikaze wallbreaking in UU with the exception of Shell Smash Omastar. Omastar has the staying power to both sweep and break walls because of his superior Speed.

 

[Heysup]

When I think of kamikaze wall-breaking, I don't think of any of those Pokemon. I think of CB Darmanitan spamming Flare Blitz. I think of Honchkrow spamming Brave Bird. Well, I guess nowadays that's it.

Back in the days of last gen, Explosion was way more useful. You could take a wall-breaker, deal as much damage as possible to as many Pokemon as possible, then explode for a guaranteed kill. Worked as a lure and then some. Honchkrow + Raikou was the best example of this. Blaziken + anything was as well (heysupken for life).

tl;dr
Kamikaze wall-breaking isn't what it used to be, and in my opinion, is not involving the sets posted here.

 

[shrang]

I guess Final Gambit could be classified, but yeah, "kamikaze wall-breaking" (who even came up with this term) isn't really what's listed. It literally should be "kill yourself while killing something else".

In terms of other sets, I could think of:
- Choice Band Rampardos spamming Head Smash
- Choice Band Archeops spamming Head Smash
- Lickilicky using Explosion*
- Snorlax using Selfdestruct*

* While these two have been weakened, they are still probably strong enough to be considered.