[overview]
**Draft Order**: Round 7 onwards
**Price Range**: 2-4 points
**Overview**: Often referred to as a "budget Volcarona," Frosmoth is a low-cost Quiver Dance user that can serve as an effective secondary Tera Captain. Taking advantage of Ice Scales, it can soak up special attacks and set up with Quiver Dance to become reasonably fast and specially threatening, especially when Tera gives it a better typing and additional coverage. However, Frosmoth is nowhere near as good as Volcarona, as it is slow and physically frail, additionally lacking reliable recovery while setting up. Without Tera, it also has an atrocious defensive typing and poor offensive coverage, with an especially hard time hitting the Fire- and Steel-types it does poorly against. Finally, it is essentially required to run Heavy-Duty Boots to avoid losing half its health to Stealth Rock upon switching in.
[strategy comments]
Common Roles
========
**Setup Sweeper**: Frosmoth most commonly uses Quiver Dance combined with Terastallization to set up and sweep teams. Due to its poor Speed, however, it typically needs to get off two or even three Quiver Dances before it becomes fast enough to reliably sweep.
**Special Tank / Utility**: Less commonly, Frosmoth can lean into its solid utility movepool to focus on tanking special attacks with Ice Scales while removing entry hazards with Defog, spreading paralysis with Stun Spore, and pivoting out with U-turn.
Common Moves
========
**Primary STAB Moves**: Ice Beam, Bug Buzz
**Setup Moves**: Quiver Dance
**Utility Moves**: Defog, U-turn, Stun Spore, Tailwind, Reflect, Light Screen, Substitute
**Coverage**: Giga Drain, Dazzling Gleam, Hurricane, Air Slash, Tera Blast
Niche Moves
========
**Infestation**: Infestation can trap overly passive foes, allowing Frosmoth to set up on them, or prevent a double switch against an opposing switch-in.
**Blizzard / Aurora Veil**: When paired with a snow setter, Frosmoth can run Blizzard over Ice Beam for a more powerful STAB move and, more rarely, Aurora Veil over Reflect and Light Screen to support its team.
Common Items
========
**Heavy-Duty Boots**: Heavy-Duty Boots is nearly mandatory on Frosmoth, given its severe weakness to Stealth Rock. It can only afford to not run Heavy-Duty Boots if its team can guarantee Stealth Rock is consistently removed or is never set.
Niche Items
========
**Damage-boosting Items**: As a setup sweeper, Frosmoth can appreciate damage-boosting items to let it hit KO thresholds more easily.
**Leftovers**: While setting up, Frosmoth appreciates Leftovers recovery to bolster its longevity. Due to its weakness to Stealth Rock, this is typically only better than Heavy-Duty Boots on lead or if Frosmoth has the chance to use Tera before Stealth Rock goes up.
**Light Clay**: When running dual screens on its utility set, Light Clay can extend the length of time Frosmoth's team is protected.
Tera
========
Frosmoth is a solid low-cost secondary Tera Captain meant to be paired with an expensive primary Tera Captain. Tera lets it shed its horrible defensive typing, which gives it many opportunities to set up when combined with Ice Scales, and provides much-needed offensive coverage. Common Tera types for Frosmoth include Tera Ground to hit Steel-, Fire-, and Rock-types and Tera Water to gain a better defensive typing while still hitting Fire- and Rock-types. The primary downside to using Tera on Frosmoth is opportunity cost: due to its poor Speed and physical bulk, it's normally less effective with Tera than the expensive primary Tera Captain it's typically paired with, but it's hungry for Tera and often needs to use it to contribute to a matchup.
Draft Strategy
========
Frosmoth mainly serves as a budget option for drafts that need an extra setup sweeper or a low-cost Tera Captain to complement an expensive primary Tera Captain. Although it gets Defog, it's slow and prefers to run Quiver Dance sets instead, so it should not be relied on as a team's main entry hazard remover. As a Quiver Dance sweeper with access to Ice Scales, it is normally drafted on offensive teams that want to exploit certain special threats, such as Raging Bolt.
**Water- and Ground-types**: Frosmoth is heavily threatened by Fire-, Rock-, and Steel-types and is typically forced out against them. Water- and Ground-types do well against these foes and prevent too much momentum from being lost.
**Physically Defensive Pokemon**: Similarly to the above, Frosmoth does poorly against physical attackers that are faster than it or that it cannot OHKO, so physical walls can take attacks for it and punish foes.
**Chilly Reception**: Slowking and Galarian Slowking, although not mandatory teammates by any means, complement Frosmoth nicely by giving it access to snow for reliable Blizzard access and a Defense increase pre-Tera while also letting it enter the battlefield without taking a hit. It's not often worth it to run Frosmoth over other Pokemon on dedicated snow teams with setters like Alolan Ninetales, but it benefits from the specific synergy the Slowking duo provides.
Checks and Counters
========
**Fire-, Rock-, and Steel-types**: Without Tera, Frosmoth is immensely vulnerable to Fire-, Rock-, and Steel-types and cannot meaningfully hit them. Fire-types like Chi-Yu hit it for extreme damage, and it can't touch them in return. Rock-types like Tyranitar pose the same huge threat, with Frosmoth's only option to hit them being the weak Giga Drain, and Steel-types like Gholdengo wall it while still hitting it super effectively.
**Physical Attackers**: Frosmoth has poor physical bulk and no way to increase it. Therefore, common physical attackers like Ogerpon-W and Palafin can easily OHKO it with their neutral STAB moves.
**Faster Foes**: Frosmoth's poor base Speed is a huge hindrance to it. Most foes can outspeed it even after a boost or two by using Choice Scarf or Speed Booster Energy, including some highly threatening common high-tiers like Urshifu-S, Gouging Fire, and Iron Crown. Additionally, Pokemon with 122 or more base Speed can always naturally outspeed +1 Frosmoth, leaving other common top-tiers like Meowscarada, Iron Boulder, and Weavile irritating threats.
**Knock Off**: If it loses its Heavy-Duty Boots to Knock Off, Frosmoth will take severe damage from Stealth Rock every time it switches in.
**Phazing**: Frosmoth cannot deny phazing moves beyond using Tera Fairy to get around Dragon Tail, and it typically relies on setting up to make progress for its team. This is especially bad if its Heavy-Duty Boots is removed with Knock Off.
[credits]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/solarbeam.470115/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/termnal.404799/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/jscurf.608304/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/scribble.356084/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/sunny004.197240/
**Draft Order**: Round 7 onwards
**Price Range**: 2-4 points
**Overview**: Often referred to as a "budget Volcarona," Frosmoth is a low-cost Quiver Dance user that can serve as an effective secondary Tera Captain. Taking advantage of Ice Scales, it can soak up special attacks and set up with Quiver Dance to become reasonably fast and specially threatening, especially when Tera gives it a better typing and additional coverage. However, Frosmoth is nowhere near as good as Volcarona, as it is slow and physically frail, additionally lacking reliable recovery while setting up. Without Tera, it also has an atrocious defensive typing and poor offensive coverage, with an especially hard time hitting the Fire- and Steel-types it does poorly against. Finally, it is essentially required to run Heavy-Duty Boots to avoid losing half its health to Stealth Rock upon switching in.
[strategy comments]
Common Roles
========
**Setup Sweeper**: Frosmoth most commonly uses Quiver Dance combined with Terastallization to set up and sweep teams. Due to its poor Speed, however, it typically needs to get off two or even three Quiver Dances before it becomes fast enough to reliably sweep.
**Special Tank / Utility**: Less commonly, Frosmoth can lean into its solid utility movepool to focus on tanking special attacks with Ice Scales while removing entry hazards with Defog, spreading paralysis with Stun Spore, and pivoting out with U-turn.
Common Moves
========
**Primary STAB Moves**: Ice Beam, Bug Buzz
**Setup Moves**: Quiver Dance
**Utility Moves**: Defog, U-turn, Stun Spore, Tailwind, Reflect, Light Screen, Substitute
**Coverage**: Giga Drain, Dazzling Gleam, Hurricane, Air Slash, Tera Blast
Niche Moves
========
**Infestation**: Infestation can trap overly passive foes, allowing Frosmoth to set up on them, or prevent a double switch against an opposing switch-in.
**Blizzard / Aurora Veil**: When paired with a snow setter, Frosmoth can run Blizzard over Ice Beam for a more powerful STAB move and, more rarely, Aurora Veil over Reflect and Light Screen to support its team.
Common Items
========
**Heavy-Duty Boots**: Heavy-Duty Boots is nearly mandatory on Frosmoth, given its severe weakness to Stealth Rock. It can only afford to not run Heavy-Duty Boots if its team can guarantee Stealth Rock is consistently removed or is never set.
Niche Items
========
**Damage-boosting Items**: As a setup sweeper, Frosmoth can appreciate damage-boosting items to let it hit KO thresholds more easily.
**Leftovers**: While setting up, Frosmoth appreciates Leftovers recovery to bolster its longevity. Due to its weakness to Stealth Rock, this is typically only better than Heavy-Duty Boots on lead or if Frosmoth has the chance to use Tera before Stealth Rock goes up.
**Light Clay**: When running dual screens on its utility set, Light Clay can extend the length of time Frosmoth's team is protected.
Tera
========
Frosmoth is a solid low-cost secondary Tera Captain meant to be paired with an expensive primary Tera Captain. Tera lets it shed its horrible defensive typing, which gives it many opportunities to set up when combined with Ice Scales, and provides much-needed offensive coverage. Common Tera types for Frosmoth include Tera Ground to hit Steel-, Fire-, and Rock-types and Tera Water to gain a better defensive typing while still hitting Fire- and Rock-types. The primary downside to using Tera on Frosmoth is opportunity cost: due to its poor Speed and physical bulk, it's normally less effective with Tera than the expensive primary Tera Captain it's typically paired with, but it's hungry for Tera and often needs to use it to contribute to a matchup.
Draft Strategy
========
Frosmoth mainly serves as a budget option for drafts that need an extra setup sweeper or a low-cost Tera Captain to complement an expensive primary Tera Captain. Although it gets Defog, it's slow and prefers to run Quiver Dance sets instead, so it should not be relied on as a team's main entry hazard remover. As a Quiver Dance sweeper with access to Ice Scales, it is normally drafted on offensive teams that want to exploit certain special threats, such as Raging Bolt.
**Water- and Ground-types**: Frosmoth is heavily threatened by Fire-, Rock-, and Steel-types and is typically forced out against them. Water- and Ground-types do well against these foes and prevent too much momentum from being lost.
**Physically Defensive Pokemon**: Similarly to the above, Frosmoth does poorly against physical attackers that are faster than it or that it cannot OHKO, so physical walls can take attacks for it and punish foes.
**Chilly Reception**: Slowking and Galarian Slowking, although not mandatory teammates by any means, complement Frosmoth nicely by giving it access to snow for reliable Blizzard access and a Defense increase pre-Tera while also letting it enter the battlefield without taking a hit. It's not often worth it to run Frosmoth over other Pokemon on dedicated snow teams with setters like Alolan Ninetales, but it benefits from the specific synergy the Slowking duo provides.
Checks and Counters
========
**Fire-, Rock-, and Steel-types**: Without Tera, Frosmoth is immensely vulnerable to Fire-, Rock-, and Steel-types and cannot meaningfully hit them. Fire-types like Chi-Yu hit it for extreme damage, and it can't touch them in return. Rock-types like Tyranitar pose the same huge threat, with Frosmoth's only option to hit them being the weak Giga Drain, and Steel-types like Gholdengo wall it while still hitting it super effectively.
**Physical Attackers**: Frosmoth has poor physical bulk and no way to increase it. Therefore, common physical attackers like Ogerpon-W and Palafin can easily OHKO it with their neutral STAB moves.
**Faster Foes**: Frosmoth's poor base Speed is a huge hindrance to it. Most foes can outspeed it even after a boost or two by using Choice Scarf or Speed Booster Energy, including some highly threatening common high-tiers like Urshifu-S, Gouging Fire, and Iron Crown. Additionally, Pokemon with 122 or more base Speed can always naturally outspeed +1 Frosmoth, leaving other common top-tiers like Meowscarada, Iron Boulder, and Weavile irritating threats.
**Knock Off**: If it loses its Heavy-Duty Boots to Knock Off, Frosmoth will take severe damage from Stealth Rock every time it switches in.
**Phazing**: Frosmoth cannot deny phazing moves beyond using Tera Fairy to get around Dragon Tail, and it typically relies on setting up to make progress for its team. This is especially bad if its Heavy-Duty Boots is removed with Knock Off.
[credits]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/solarbeam.470115/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/termnal.404799/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/jscurf.608304/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/scribble.356084/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/sunny004.197240/
Last edited:
