Claydol (Analysis) [QC 0/3]

Thundur

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Claydol

[Overview]
  • Access to both Stealth Rocks and Rapid Spin
  • Great physical and special defense
  • Levitate allows Claydol to dodge Toxic Spikes and Spikes as well as Landorus' and Gliscor's Earthquakes
  • Immune to Sandstorm
  • Immune to Electric attacks
  • Resists Stealth Rocks
  • Resists Terrakion's dual stab combination
  • Poor HP
  • Poor offensive stats
  • Lack of reliable recovery

[Set]

Name: Support
Move 1: Stealth Rocks
Move 2: Rapid Spin
Move 3: Ice Beam
Move 4: Earthquake
Item: Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Nature: Relaxed
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD

[SET COMMENTS]
  • Rapid Spin is what makes Claydol special, as not many Pokemon have access to Rapid Spin
  • Great all around support Pokemon
  • Provides support for teams with a Stealth Rock weakness as well as teams that are weak to hazards in general
  • Stealth Rocks allows Claydol to not only keep hazards of your side of the field, but set them up to rack up damage on your opponent's Pokemon

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
  • A Relaxed nature is used because Claydol uses it's attacking stats on both sides of the spectrum
  • The defensive EV spread allows Claydol to take powerful physical attacks such as Close Combat from Terrakion
  • Earthquake is used over Earth Power to hit CM and Specially Defensive Jirachi and because it is more powerful than Earthpower
  • Ice Beam hits Landorus, Gliscor, and Dragons
  • Leftovers somewhat makes up for Claydol's lack of reliable recovery

[Other Options]
  • A Dual Screen set can be used
  • A Trick set can be used to cripple your opponent's Pokemon
  • Toxic can be used to wear down walls
  • Trick Room can be used on Trick Room teams

[Checks and Counters]
  • Gengar and Jellicent can prevent Claydol from Rapid Spinning and can deal hefty amounts of damage with their STAB attacks
  • Scizor can shrug off any damage and Pursuit trap or U-Turn
  • Rotom-W can switch into all sets lacking Toxic and can deal large amounts of damage with Hydro Pump
  • Tyranitar can switch in on Ice Beam hit Claydol hard with a STAB Crunch or trap Claydol with Pursuit
  • Starmie can Hydro Pump to to kill Claydol and recover the damage off later
  • Powerful Water-type attacks in general
 
Iconic said:
claydol is pretty much inferior to just about every rapid spinner imaginable in OU. with excadrill gone, there's even less reason to use it. doesn't really warrant an analysis.
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This was said on the last attempt at a Claydol analysis, which didn't fare well. I'm also pretty unconvinced since Claydol is pretty much weak or neutral (which doesn't help its case) to the most common moves in the metagame, and, unlike others, can't help itself to do much back. In the end, Claydol can't really pick up the slack of a typical everyday OU team (which Starmie and Donphan can easily fit themselves into).
 
Perhaps it's better to put 8 EVs into speed to outspeed the standard 8 EV ('no investment', these 8 EVs are just leftover EVs after 252 attack and 248 hp) Scizor.
 
As the last person who wrote the rejected Claydol analysis, I have learned a lot of things.
I will now do my best to prove that Claydol is good in OU
  1. Claydol has Levitate. This means that it's not weak to hazards like Donphan is(except for Rocks ofc).
  2. Good movepool allows it to beat Dragon-types, one of the scarier types in OU
  3. Decent Check to Terrakion and ok check to Landy
  4. Claydol's set of resistances is amazing for sun teams. Most sun teams are more offensively based, so only having one mon to decently check the many physical threats in OU is great. Also, providing Rapid Spin support is very useful for sun teams
  5. Good on hail teams due to resistance of Rock- and Fighting-type moves.
 
Calcs for Jolly Choice Scarf Terrakion:
252Atk Terrakion (Neutral) X-Scissor vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers Claydol (+Def): 37% - 44% (122 - 144 HP). Guaranteed 3HKO.
252Atk Terrakion (Neutral) Close Combat vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers Claydol (+Def): 20% - 25% (68 - 81 HP). Guaranteed 5HKO.
252Atk Terrakion (Neutral) Stone Edge vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers Claydol (+Def): 17% - 20% (57 - 67 HP). Guaranteed 6HKO.

I'd say he's more than a "decent check". In fact, Unless Terrakion can get two Swords Dances in, he will never OHKO Claydol without rocks, dealing an absolute max of 96% with a +2 Adamant X-Scissor. Meanwhile, Claydol brutalizes Terrakion with EQ.

Calc:
0Atk Claydol (Neutral) Earthquake vs 4HP/0Def Terrakion (Neutral): 54% - 64% (176 - 210 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.

I've always been a fan of Claydol in UU, and while I've never gotten him to work in OU, he completely cockblocks all but SD Terrakion or CB Terrakion that predicts the switch-in.
 
Yep. I used this boy on my last sun team, and I have to say that I had absolutely NO Terrakion problems. This effectively walls Terrakion to hell and back.
 
AccidentalGreed said:
I'm also pretty unconvinced since Claydol is pretty much weak or neutral (which doesn't help its case) to the most common moves in the metagame, and, unlike others, can't help itself to do much back. In the end, Claydol can't really pick up the slack of a typical everyday OU team (which Starmie and Donphan can easily fit themselves into).
Click to expand...

Ice Beam hits Dragons. Claydol is also one of the few pokes that can switch into Mence without dying a turn later
Earthquake hits Terrak, Lucario and other things I can't think of.

There's no way that Claydol "can't help itself to do much back,"
Claydol sucks against Scizor, but it's a decent check to everything else.

QC's Reasoning last time for why Claydol isn't a good check to Terrakion is because it can use X-Scissor to deal a decent amount of damage. I didn't really want to confront them but honestly, that could be said about most walls.
 
X-Scissor is not enough to discount Claydol as a check. You have a very slim chance to 2HKO with LO X-Scissor. Anything weaker misses the 2HKO and gets ruined with Earthquake. I don't see how that applies as an argument. It's like saying Slowbro doesn't stop Terrakion. Yeah, he takes the X-Scissors better, but he's neutral Stone Edge and gets maimed by entry hazards.
 
Since most of Terrakion are choiced, Claydol will not be the Pokemon staying in on X-Scissor. When I have used Claydol, I used Claydol to take Terrakion's Close Combat's and Stone Edge's. Predict around Terrakion so that a Pokemon that resists Bug will be the one taking X-Scissors. If you pivot around Terrakion well, Claydol should usually remain at a nice amount of HP.

Since most non-choiced Terrakion lack X-Scissor, Claydol can check them well. Calcs:
  • 252 +2 Atk Terrakion Close Combat vs 252 HP/252 Def Claydol: 41.67% - 49.38% 3 hits to KO (with Leftovers)
  • 252 +2 Atk Terrakion Stone Edge vs 252 HP/252 Def Claydol: 34.88% - 41.05% 3-4 hits to KO (with Leftovers)
 
There's no way that Claydol "can't help itself to do much back,"
Claydol sucks against Scizor, but it's a decent check to everything else.
Click to expand...
Uhhhh... Claydol also gets beaten down by Tyranitar, Dragonite, Rotom-W, Lati@s, Jirachi, Starmie, Celebi, the now popular Bulk Up Breloom, Gyarados, Haxorus, Mence, Lucario, Brokenrona, Ninetales, Jellicent, Conkeldurr, Nattorei, and many more Pokemon in OU. Checking Terrakion / SD Lando (without U-turn) is nice and all, but Claydol getting fucked up by most of OU is enough to prevent it from being, you know, usable. Donphan can at least spam Earthquake and actually hurt something, while Forry has Volt Switch to damage Skarm and Gyarados / gtfo / scout. It doesn't help that Claydol is without a reliable form of recovery and isn't really fast.

EDIT: and for the love of all that's sacred, don't bring up Golurk. Golurk was just one of the many Pokemon that got an OU analysis in the earlier stages of Gen V because it wasn't 100% bad. I'm pretty sure that if Golurk were to go through QC again, it would be rejected due to the current state of the metagame.
 
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