What If? - Alternate Timelines (AT #9: Grass/Steel Cresceidon - Defining Moves)

This Mon has two major groups of monsters it wants to come in on.
1) Physical Attackers without Fighting or Fire Stabs
2) Fairy and to a lesser extent ghost types

This typing is very good into most current physical attackers easily walling off mons like Gliscor, Waterpon and Kitsunoh and able to Type check mons Like Dragonite, defensive Tusk and to lesser extent Kingambit and Hamurott.

Thus leaning further into blanket checking physical threats is a good option.
Contact punishing abilities as well as abilities that improve the type matchup into these attackers are very relevant here.
Obviously with a fast wall that switches into physical attackers, Static and Flame Body are really strong. Iron Barbs as proven by ferro also fits this typing perfectly especially since you might be able to double down on punishing contact attacks with a helmet since wearing boots isn’t super necessary.
Abilities like Fluffy or Levitate further expand the great matchups into physical attackers and Levitate adds an immunity to spikes that seems also relevant.

On the other Hand this type combo is great to deal with less offensive Special Attackers like Cresc, Clef, Libra, Pecharunt, Zapdos, (does it ever run Heat Wave anymore?) as well as more offensive ones like Kril, Primarina, Deoxys, and to lesser extent Pult and Dengo.

Some of these could become annoying for a fast Mon through spreading status, which flower veil is perfect for dealing with.
Other matchups would become easier with the addition of a defensive ability like Bulletproof or Purifying Salt (which also helps with status)


Overall I think Flower Veil or one of the Contact Abilities fit this typing best without going overboard with additional utility like eg Purifying Salt or Levitate.
 
I strongly support a Thunder Wave immunity. Flower Veil works very well, but I'm not sure the Sticky Web immunity is quite as necessary, as teammates can work to keep Webs off the field. With that in mind, I would like to nominate Volt Absorb. In addition to what is nearly a paralysis immunity (by the way, are we considering the current metagame, or are we considering the metagame as it was during Cresceidon's original process? If the former, Glare Shox is still annoying.) it helps with our survivability quite a bit. We may resist Electric already, but an immunity not only prevents chip from accumulating as we switch in on attacks but even gives us opportunities to heal on a successful predict. Purifying Salt works similarly with its Ghost resistance, but I prefer Volt Absorb's simplicity.
 
Okay guys a bit later than I wanted to do this, but it is time for the ability slate! The slate is as follows:

Flower Veil
Fluffy
Effect Spore
Static

All 4 of these in some way have at least more than 1 post in support of them so it is a small, but mighty, slate!

EDIT: this is a single bold vote slate as most usually are for the AT project (thanks for asking Yaheg so that others can know as well now thanks to the edit)

I am gonna give a small window for voting of 24 hours but I may forget and it may be pushed to like 30 or 32 hours idk lol.
 
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And with 10 votes,  Flower Veil shall be AT Cresceidon's ability! With that, we are onto defining moves!

I think a good question to ask here is:

How would certain moves interact with our Speed? Is there any utility moves that work directly with a somewhat high Speed stat and if so, are they worth being a defining move when it comes to stats?

This is intentionally vague to give us just a guideline as we discuss moves that may not be universal to a wall but may be to a  fast wall.

This stage is usually the "deadest" so I am expecting to be done with discussion on this by Wednesday at some point and we can move onto my favorite stage the stats!
 
Strength Sap, maybe Torment. Flower Veil prevents stats from being lowered, so a way to utilize this mon effectively might be to make it somewhat of annoying obstacle, such as one that forces the opponent to deal with it using even fewer options, while also compromising its own setup. Strength Sap is such a busted move already, so putting it on a Grass/Steel fast wall is just an absolute meme
 
Going to approach this stage a bit loosely and rattle off a few STAB moves I think could benefit AT9. Hopefully their merits are somewhat self-evident. I also won't be going over any universally assumed moves, but just for quick reference:

Giga Drain
Leaf Storm
Energy Ball
Seed Bomb
Bullet Seed
Flash Cannon
Iron Head
Steel Beam
Iron Defense
Endure
Facade
Helping Hand
Protect
Rest
Sleep Talk
Substitute
Take Down
Tera Blast

Anyhoo, onto some more notable moves!

Grass has an abundance of strong utility moves for a fast defensively-oriented Pokemon including a number of signature damaging moves (Apple Acid, Grav Apple, Matcha Gatcha, and Trop Kick) and more widely distributed status moves (Cotton Guard, Leech Seed, Sleep Powder/Spore/Stun Spore, Spiky Shield, Strength Sap, and Synthesis). Of these, only Apple Acid, Grav Apple, Leech Seed, and Spiky Shield do not directly take advantage of our high speed. There's lots of fertile ground here. Cotton Guard is especially notable as our ability stops any status that typically hinder set up.

Steel is a bit lacking in comparison, with only Heavy Slam and (possibly) Anchor Shot being of note. And neither plays as naturally into our high speed.
 
In terms of utility that interacts with speed, Encore is the most obvious one. Works quite well here, and we can now switch in on status moves freely and Encore opponents into them. Taunt fits the bill too. Knock Off doesn’t directly interact with speed, but I guess knocking off a Sub user before it can sub is helpful. You can also click it into a Zapdos or whatever without fearing para. Recovery Moves outspeeding Taunt users is helpful, and the same is true for hazard setting or status (Stun Spore is cool). I’m not sure how much any of these outside of recovery impact stats to be honest.

STAB-wise I'm in favor of going physical. Not having to fear many forms of contact punishing is a huge selling point, and we can't be wisped by things like Pult and Rotom-W. We also ignore Intimidate which is funny. Horn Leech is probably my preference for grass. As much as I hate to say it, Iron Head interacts beneficially with speed....
 
I think a very fast Haze user with this typing could be pretty solid. Removing boosts from mons like Gliscor, Oger, or dnite is pretty pog, while you might not be able to immediately threaten them moves like wisp or toxic could aid against them.
Knock off is always powerful on grass types which forces in fire and flying mons and would fit well on a Mon that is such a good answer to threats like cresceidon, Hex Pult, Kitsunoh and Krilowatt
 
Something I was thinking about briefly is hazards. I think we'd be a pretty bad remover because of not doing much of anything to ghold, but we're not a bad setter since we're able to pressure most removers and could even potentially outspeed Cinderace. Rocks puts a bit of pressure on birds (particularly with knock), but spikes is decent too. I'm pretty sure you could fit it onto a set too... something like rocks / knock / synthesis / power whip probably works.

Wanted to talk about Leech Seed quickly cuz there's been some discussion about it. I think it's pretty terrible here. Being fast with Leech Seed has a couple beneficial aspects (mainly outspeeding opposing Sub and Taunt users, and speed enables SubSeed to an extent), but I think overall speed is actually a huge detriment with this move. When you click fast Leech Seed, a slower pokemon can click a pivoting move and bring in a mon for free unseeded. If you imagine a scenario with two slower pivots clicking a pivoting move into each other every turn as you click Leech Seed, they literally never take seed damage. If you were slower, something would take damage every turn. This interaction may be part of the reason 20 base speed Ferro ran the move effectively. I think more standard recovery moves are a better bet.
 
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